ESTATE PLANNING, Family Planning, Preparedness
FAMILY BONDS THAT CAN HURT OR HEAL
Family Bonds that can hurt or heal, our interview today with Mirinda Kossoff, and she’s an author and a writer of the Rope of life- A Memoir is a memoir is a daughter’s story told with love and compassion. Absolutely beautiful.
“In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the the commitment of time, caring and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit.” Marge Kennedy
And we all need that right now in our lives with the pandemic. Absolutely. So if please like, share, and subscribe this channel with all of your friends and family. Your Backup Plan APP brings your life all in one place. So that in case of any unpredictable circumstance, what does that mean? What are those unpredictable circumstances? Well, that could be a car accident, a hurricane, a tornado, earthquake, a flood, losing your wallet or passport while you’re traveling? What’s in your wallet? What happens when you go into the hospital for surgery?
Or COVID? All of a sudden, and who’s gonna look after your cat? How do they know what cat food to pick? How do they know who your vet is? How do they get into your home? How do they pay your electricity bill so that when you come home, it’s still on an operating? How do they do all of these things so that you can actually recover and Get home safe and sound and not have any of those stresses or worries. And it doesn’t have to be on death. Of course we talk about death as well because there’s so many different things. Around the death part, that if you don’t have all your T’s crossed, and your eyes dotted, it can be very, very messy, very unsettling. Lots of family feuds, lots of family fights.
And it’s not just for the average person. It’s also for celebrities, because they’re in the news all the time as well, that they didn’t have their crap together as well. Robin Williams, Michael Jackson, Johnson, and Johnson, all sorts of singers, actors, actresses, all sorts of people that did not have their plans in place. And that’s just not just the documents, it’s everything. What do you want it to look like? What do you want to have happen? All of those kinds of things we talked about, as well as the fun part of the treasure box in in module number 12.
So anyways, let’s get this party started here. And enough about the app and our discussion here. One thing you know, and and that’s why we get people to expect the unexpected, because you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. And I’d like to mention our wonderful United States listeners, thank you so very much. We love you. We send lots of love and light to you guys. You’re one of our biggest listeners, Canada’s next and we love you as well. And Germany is our next upcoming listener, community. And Ireland is next. And I did a really poor job of my Irish accent. So I’m definitely going to need some assistance with that. And the next one is Sweden that’s coming up in the ranks. And I’m also want to thank Ireland for listening. We love you and Sweden. We love you as well. Let’s get this party started because I’m going to have to have some assistance with the Swedish part as well. So thank you guys. Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you.
So let’s get our guest on here. Mirinda Kossoff. She is here for us. There she is.
Hi, Tina. I’m delighted to be here. Oh, thank you, Mirinda, thank you so much for coming. Mirinda is coming to us from North Carolina, beautiful North Carolina today. I wish I was there with you. She’s an author and a writer. She just finished the rope of life and then more of a daughter’s story told with love and compassion. I’m so excited to hear about how this all started for you. And your beautiful story that can help others because we all don’t have that perfect family. And I don’t know who does. But they all seem to appear on Instagram and Facebook. Like they are all perfect families. That we all know that that’s not really the truth. But we can have love and compassion anyways in our family. And yours is no different. Where would you like to start? Like, let’s start from the beginning. Mirinda, let’s start right from the beginning.
Well, there are several beginnings to start from, um, maybe I should mention since the role of life is primarily about my father in my relationship with him and how that influenced my choices as I got older, especially my choices and men that my father was a Jew who grew up in New York, and at 19. He enlisted in World War Two. He flew a b 17. He was a top turret gunner and Flight Engineer and flew 26 missions over Germany.
And the the death rate among the Army Air Corps was about 50% so he was lucky he got back alive. And to make this story I’m spooling out not too long. I’ll just say that he met and married my mother. When he was stationed in Greensboro before North Carolina before he shipped out. I’m sorry he didn’t marry her before he shipped out. He married her when he came back. And my mother was a Southern Baptist, a fundamentalist Southern Baptist. So the two couldn’t be further apart. She was also almost a decade older than he. But he came back this handsome, dashing war hero, and my mother at that time, he was 21. And she was 30. And she was bordering on at that time being an old maid, because all the available men had were at war during those years.
So the to married in December of 1945. And then I was born Three years later, my father converted to my mother’s religion. And he was all in he became a Baptist, a deacon in the Baptist church. He supported the missionaries, he was very fond of Baptist missionaries. And he tried generally to pass as a good old Southern boy, which was difficult in the town. I grew up in Danville, Virginia, which in history is best known as the last capital of the Confederacy. When Jefferson Davis fled from Richmond, he set up confederacy headquarters in the old Sutherland mansion in Danville, Virginia. And so Danville took pride in its place in history as the last capital of the Confederacy. Now, I think we would look at that and say, nothing to be proud of there.
But this gives you a sense of where he was trying to fit in was the Jim Crow South. The blacks in our area, were demonstrating for their civil rights, Martin Luther King visited three times in 1963. So there was a lot going on that was swept under the rug. My father, fairly typical of men of his era was not very emotionally available. I never saw him cry. My mother said the only time she saw him cry was when he took the dental board to practice in North Carolina because that’s where they wanted to settle to be near my mother’s twin sister. And he was flunked and my mother found out through some channels that he was flown on purpose because they didn’t want another Jew practicing in North Carolina. So that’s how we ended up in Danville, Virginia, there was an opening for a public health dentist, he passed the boards in Virginia, handily, and he settled there.
And he, he was a man of many, many talents. He he was a wonderful dentist, he his patients loved him, he would tell jokes, and he would make funny lyrics to songs that you you knew, like I Dream of Jeannie because I was called Jean. He was saying I Dream of Jeannie with the light brain skin, and, and other things like that. That was just typical of him. He used humor, to both connect to people and also to keep a distance. And he did that with me. And he did that with my three siblings. I’m the oldest of four. And to fast forward, he ran for city council and last and then he bought land in the county surrounding Danville, ran for county commissioner and lost. And my mother in a letter to me because I was in college at the time, said he, he said he was a failure.
And here was a man who had built the home of his dreams on 126 acres, built up a hangar had his own airplane, had his pilot like pilot’s license and a pool house with a pool so he could swim because he had a bad back. And he sort of devolved into a chronic pain patient who we could tell us also depressed. And my book opens with a flight I took with him when he was about 50. And I was I was about 29 or 30. And he he had lost his daring do because he was very nervous flying the plane which made me very nervous. Being in the passenger seat, it was a single engine Cessna. And I realized at that point that my father was not as old self, so can do, can do anything. Brilliant self, he was a man who was slowly falling apart. And it was a Gordian knot of reasons why this was happening. And partially, I think it was a subtle anti Semitism.
He experienced and, and, and I as his daughter did, even though we weren’t going to Baptist church regularly. So he committed suicide at age 55, he was on the psychiatric wing of University of Virginia hospital, under 24 hours suicide watch. But knowing my father, and knowing that my father could solve any problem could get around any obstacle. Um, I wasn’t surprised that he was able to do that, even though we thought he was safe. So it was, we were gutted. It was it was a shock, even though, you know, he had talked about suicide. And we knew how depressed he was. He blamed it on his chronic pain, but I think it was so much more than pain. There was a lot of psychological pain and pain that he could not share with anyone. So my book, the book has been in me for 20 years, and prior
was what puts him in the hospital. Miranda did some incident happen.
Well, he had been in four other hospitals. for back pain, he had two back surgeries, and neither did any good. And he felt only made his back problem worse. He’d been in the VA hospital in Durham. He’d been in hospital in Winston Salem, he’d been in the Danville Memorial Hospital.
And what’s wrong with his back? I mean, um, I have, they didn’t know as much as they know about, well,
he had herniated discs. And they did a laminectomy, which means, you know, they trim the disc material that’s bulging out, I have the same disease process in my back that he had. Oh, wow. And I can tell you, it’s very painful. But I can also tell you that people live with it. And that, I don’t think it was the pain alone, that made him want to leave us. Um, I think it was so much more. So throughout my life, I’ve always, my career was in communications.
I was at Duke University for 15 years. And I wrote a lot of essays and pieces about my father, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t set it aside, his suicide was such a seminal moment in my life, that I thought about it, I wrote about it in various ways. And then I finally decided to write a book about it. When my mother died in 2000. I thought, well, I know she wouldn’t be happy about me writing this. But now that she’s gone, I can start this and I wrote an essay that was published in a book of women’s essays. And one of my sisters got wind of it. And it didn’t like the fact that I had written about dad suicide. And I didn’t mention my siblings in this essay, it was about me and my father and my reaction to a suicide. But she, there was pushback that was such that I, I stopped writing I had done a few chapters 20 years later, you know, it’s, it’s now 20 2019, I would say or late 2018. I just had this insistent voice inside that that said, You have got to write this. You’ve got to write this book. You have to write you have to write and I kept trying to ignore it, because I know what’s going on. My family upset the remaining family, my three siblings. And I was with a friend. And, and I was I had tears in my eyes and I said, I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t write this book. And she said, write it.
And at that time, I realized that writing it for me would be a catharsis and it would lead me to understand better my father, his choice, my relationship with him, and how his his relationship to me pushed me to make the choices I made unconsciously in my first marriage, and I always joked that if you put me in a room with 30 men, I would gravitate to the one who was the most emotionally unavailable, or the most screwed up. And I would have this kind of radar, there’d be bows going off and be like, Oh, yes, I have to be with this person. And that was not a good model for for picking a spouse and, and so that relationship lasted seven years. And I had identical twin sons as a result of that relationship. But it was a mutual agreement to part ways. I had said before we were married, that I want a career, I’m not going to be a stay at home wife, and I don’t want children. The career is what I is really what I want. And I think that was the authentic me speaking. But he turned 30 and a friend and had a baby and waxed eloquent about watching the birth of his daughter, then my ex husband got the baby bug. And he pushed it and talked about it. And I was afraid if I didn’t get pregnant, that he would leave me and find somebody who would. So I did what was against my my nature, given that my parents were not I would not call them loving parents. They provided they guided, they were strict. They had rules. They brought us up with a sense of values, but I never felt loved. I was never told. I love you. Do you think common though during that era? Yeah. I think it probably was, though. I had friends whose whose fathers had pet names for them like kitten, Marquis, Sparky.
And yeah, cute things. And my my father called me Cruella after the bill in the 101 Dalmatians movie. Well, that was nice. Yeah, I it was a blow when he came out with that, and it’s sort of stuck. And he called me that. Um, and I still remember standing in the vestibule of the church getting ready to walk down the aisle for that first marriage. And my father was going to walk me down the aisle, I had a bouquet that had baby’s breath in it. And I was shaking, I was nervous. And the baby’s breath was quivering, trembling, and instead of saying what you would hope, like, I’m sad to give you away today, but I want this to be I want the best thing are some, he teased me about being nervous. He said, Look at those flowers, and he was laughing and I was just, it was like, he cut me off at the knees.
And my sisters who were my bridesmaid said when I was walking down the aisle that I looked like I was going to my execution and he did not set the tone very well. So that was my dad, a brilliant man but a man who didn’t know himself who didn’t wouldn’t know feeling if it slapped him upside the head. And do you think he struggled with PTSD from from the war? I think he probably did. He talked about it a lot. Instead of bedtime stories when I got you know six or older, he told me stories about the war about the plane being so shot up that he didn’t think they would make it back to base they had been in a dogfight with Mr. Smith’s. And he told me that that was when he converted, he prayed to God, that if he said I will become a Christian if you get me in the cruise safely back to base. So that’s what he did. And I knew the names of all of his crew members, boggy, Bev Fletcher and stoop names, but he talked about the war incessantly. And you know, there may have been some of that. And I think, as life went on, there would never be any feelings as intense as those that he had then both fear and being so alive because death is right there. And also the camaraderie with people you are relying on for your life and you support each other.
So I think that was that world war two was, was loomed large in his life for years and years and years. So yes, it may have been Benson PTSD. Did he lose some crew members from his group? No, they all survived. It’s not nice. 26 missions. Yeah, because they stayed together. But he told me, he would be very sad when he would come back to the Quonset hut, that was their bunk. They were stationed in England. And there will be empty bunks, men who didn’t make it back, and he said that every time he came home from a mission, there was another empty bunk and someone else had been killed. So So that’s another aspect of him.
As you can see, man, yeah, kind of gives you that eerie feeling. Because it’s it’s a fact. It’s, it’s an acknowledgement when he was in that situation. of the fact of of you may not make it.
Yes, yes. And he talks back, he never talked about. He never talked about fear, or any of his other emotions, or that might have been involved in being in that situation. He only mentioned fear. When he decided to become a Christian, you know, he was afraid they wouldn’t make it back. But weren’t me every time I got in that plane. I’d be terrified. Knowing that might be coming. Right.
Did you feel I mean, there’s a lot of there’s quite a few celebrities that got on pain medicine. Like he probably did for his back. Michael Jackson. had that issue.
Yeah, protocol is what he overdosed. So yeah, as a dentist, so he could prescribe he prescribed for himself. Yeah, that wasn’t good. No. But the pharmacist finally wised up and refuse to fill the prescriptions my father wrote for himself. So that was kind of the end of that.
What do you really think was the reason that he killed himself? Yeah. Do you think I mean, someone has to be really unhappy?
I think it was the split from his heritage, giving up everything he grew up with. He stayed in touch with his parents, my grandparents who were a big influence on me. Though I didn’t see them very often. I think it was that he failed to be accepted the way he wanted to be accepted in this southern town. He did not, he was not able to blend in and become a southerner and become accepted for the man that he was the man that he had become, rather than the man he or the person he was born as. Because he was referred to by some people as that Yankee Jew. When he was running for city council, someone told my mother who didn’t know that she was who she was married to, that I know one person I’m not voting for for city council and set Yankee Jew Kossoff.
And my mother push they were at the Five and Dime lunch counter and my mother pushed back and said, Well, I’m as you Kossoff and I, you know, I’ll be voting for him. And I’m sure the man mumbled something and then walked off. I hope you felt bad. It was that kind Have you know, like a death by 1000 cuts these these incidents? And people would say, oh, Kossoff. That’s an unusual name where y’all from. And I’m so I’m from here just like you. I was born in Greensboro and I grew up in Virginia, and born in Greensboro, North Carolina, I grew up in Virginia. And even in Sunday school, they would ask me to explain the Jewish holidays to the other students.
And I said, Well, I’m Baptist, just like you, I don’t know. So I think my father with some self hatred, and feelings of failure and not being able to confront or deal with his emotions, the psi head psychiatrist at UVA, I talked with him after my father’s death. And he said to me that your father was the most difficult patient I ever had, he said that I was not able to begin to get to the core of his deep despair. So in some ways, it will always be a bit of a mystery. But for me, in writing the book, I put together all of these pieces and it gave me a bigger picture of my father. A bigger picture of why I expected so little from the men in my life.
Because I, I got so little growing up my father, when I was a girl played with me, but then the other kids were born, and a son was born. And then when the sun came along, that was it, you know, and did your dad grow up died? I’m not sure if you had mentioned this.
Did he grow up in that area as well? Or did he he grew up in Manhattan, and then Mount Vernon, New York. My, his father, my grandfather, Hermann Kossoff, was a concert pianist. And he was immigrated from Russia as a child. And he spoke five languages fluently. He, he could talk like a professor, like a college professor, he was so erudite. And I love that about him. And, and he stoked my love of travel, and my love of language and of France, in particular, because he taught me my first French phrase sitting on his knee.
Mamsa whose specialty, Madam, you’re very kind, and I would use that, you know, whether appropriate or not, I would use that in different circumstances. But I was, I was very close to him. And my mother’s side of the family, we’re I’m not well educated, working class people who had a lot of racism. And I, I knew early on, that wasn’t right. And we’re
both from Russia. Sorry.
We’re both of them from Russia, or, or were my father’s parents. Yes. Though. My grandmother Satie was born in the US, but her her parents came from Russia as well. Because from them, they’re both Jewish. Yes. And my father was brought up Jewish, he was bought Bar Mitzvah, and I have a prayer book. And, and my grandfather’s prayer book.
Oh, cool. It sounds like they were almost like in Poland, because I know a lot of the Jews from Poland tried to, you know, go elsewhere as well. I’m not sure about the Russia part.
And I know the Berlin Wall was there. It was quite the, the big episode back at that time, I think. No, not then. We’re talking about under the rule of Tsar Nicholas the second. There were pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and Nicolas was incredibly anti Semitic. And the story I don’t know if it’s apocryphal, but the story of my family is that my great grandfather Isaac, was in the Czar’s army and Jews retreated terribly. But he wounded himself with his own saber in order to get out of the army and eventually made his way to the coast to get a boat to come to America. And okay, he brought my grandfather and his wife had some of the other children stay behind.
But they came a few years later. So many, many Russian Jews came over during the turn of the century, late a majority of them going to United States or did they go in other parts as well?
Well, so, so went to Canada, and I think my my grandparents came, my grandfather came through Canada when, when they came to the, quote, new world. So they were very assimilated, like my my grandparents, and they weren’t orthodox, and they were not particularly observant. They were more secular Jews, culturally, they were Jewish. And they observed the big holidays, like Yom Kippur War, and Passover. So I knew enough I knew about those from my my grandparents. But the other side of my family, my mother’s side were all they had own slaves. And they were wealthy at one time, but after they lost everything after the Civil War, and I don’t feel sorry for them for that. And, and they were native North Carolinians, that my lineage on my mother’s side is English and Irish with a little bit of Swedish, because her maiden name was Whitfield. So I was very much attracted to the Jewish side of my family.
Because they were the artists, the musicians, the the smart people. And my cousins on my mother’s side, use the N word. And I was afraid of them. I didn’t like being around them. But they were the ones that I saw the most unfortunately. Right. Did do you think that is deep stuff was from growing up? Do you think? When you’re thinking back now, do you think part of that was from earlier on? Growing up years?
It may have been, I’m not sure. What kind of a father My grandfather was, um, he was a terrific grandfather to me. But I do know that he went to Europe every summer. And he quite often would leave my grand mother and my dad back in New York. And he had lots of friends in Europe. He would, he spoke German, and Italian and French, and some Russian, and Spanish. And he had friends all over Europe. And I don’t, I think a child would just be in the way. And I knew that about him as I got older. But the contrast between the two sides of my family was so huge, in my mother’s eyes. My being close to my Jewish grandparents was a betrayal of her, because they did not want my father to marry her. And they tried to stop it. They want him to marry a Jewish woman. And, and perhaps someone secular, but for him to go off and marry someone. So polar opposite was something they had a hard time with. And so my mother resented that, and she often compared me to my grandfather, I would make a gesture and she’s she would say, You look just like grandpa Herman when you did that. And that was not a compliment in her mind, and it was her way. I think she marginalized me in the family because I’m the one who looks the most like the Jewish side of my family. I’m the one who was the most interested in my siblings, my siblings, excuse me, didn’t have any interest in Judaism or that side of the family. I was on who I would take a bus or train up to New York to visit my grandparents when I was in my teens, I would go by myself. So all of all of this came together in this book awesome.
It and helped me figure out a lot about myself about the like I said the choices I made in men and fortunately, myself second marriage has been really wonderful and I until recently didn’t understand why I did this. But when I met my current husband, we dated we went out for six months, never kissed, didn’t touch. And. And I think, in retrospect, I kept, he told me that he just felt I was kind of frosty. And he didn’t want to push it with me. And I think I was keeping it a distance because here was a real live man who could be emotionally available. Oh, my God. How do you do with that? Well, yeah, what do I do with that? I was scared. And finally, you know, I listened to my gut, which I didn’t listen to the first time around. And my gut was saying, yep, do it. This is a really good man. This is a stand up, man. This is a man who will be there for you. This is a man who won’t try to leave you. And so I’m very grateful for the lessons that I’ve learned. And the place I’ve wound up. I’m now a grandmother of two. I have my one of my twin sons is married and has these two wonderful grandchildren. Five and 10 years old. My other son has not married and, and my husband has two grandchildren. Through his his daughter, he has a son and a daughter, who are grown up and have extremely interesting professional lives once a physicist, the others have violinists with the Cincinnati orchestra. My husband was, was up as soon as with the North Carolina Symphony, but also has a PhD in physics. So his children got a flavor. And my two sons both have their own businesses, because they heard me kvetch about work and working for somebody else. long enough, they decided that they were going to work for themselves. So so we have a blended family. And we we visit each other’s grandchildren, my grandchildren live close by.
So I see a lot more than than we do my husband’s grandchildren, because they live in Cincinnati, Ohio. That’s quite a distance from you. It is and we actually had gotten them together. When there was only one. We got them together with my granddaughter, his granddaughter, and my, my granddaughter who is considerably older, but when they visited with her, we all got together, which was really nice. And I hope we can do that with she has my stepdaughter has a son now who’s 18 months, and my grandson is five, and her daughter’s five. So my daughter is 10. So, you know, looking to the future. I think that my husband and I will distributed distributed evenly our estate among our each grown children equal shares, and with the provision that in the instance that they have, that they’re no longer live, it would go to the grandchildren.
The next ones. What about your dad’s? Did he pass away in the hospital then a suicide? Or he did? And what? I guess it must be pretty hard to conjure up suicide when you’re in a hospital.
Yeah, well, he was a determined man. And he used the the tie to his bathroom to hang himself. He looked at over the hook on the bathroom door and look the other end around his neck. Now that hook my father was six feet tall. That hook was not taller than he was. So he had to actually slump on the floor against the rope. It wasn’t like stepping off a chair. And that’s it. You can’t go back. You’ve done it. He He was so determined that he leaned slumped against that tide and cinched it so tight, that he has succeeded himself. And that takes a will to that, to me is unfathomable. I can’t. Yeah, it’s so strong that you would think that He might, you know, clawed his throat and stand up to take the pressure off. Yeah, but you didn’t. And my brother saw the autopsy. Well, the photos of him in the hospital before they took his body away, I didn’t see them. But my brother said his eyes were open.
And I didn’t want to know any more about that. But we did see him. He had a Southern Baptist funeral. So there was an open casket for people to file by before the service, and then it was closed. And I write about that my book too. That’s onion hard. And then things came full circle. Um, I don’t know if we have time for being mentioned this, but the last chapter of my book is about ashes from the Holocaust. My, my cousin, on my mother’s side, the racist cousin, who also collected Nazi memorabilia, he had a swastika hanging on his bedroom wall, and often wondered what my father thought, when we visited of that, seeing that? Well, after both his parents were dead, and his older brother, who was a sexual predator, was dead. He contacted us and told us about these ashes his father had brought back from Dhaka, he had gone to Dachau to he was a courier to deliver something. And the camp had just been liberated a few days earlier. So a former prisoner took him around the prison camp and dock him and gave him a scoop of compacted ashes, and said, Take this, so you will never forget what happened here.
And my grandpa, my uncle, never talked about it. And when he was dying, he had heart failure. He told my cousin, the youngest of his two sons about the ashes, and the story of how he came to have them. And then my cousin kept them hidden in a drawer for 20 years. And this cousin is the only one left of the entire family. And he has had three heart attacks. So he decided he better tell us about the ashes, because if he died, and we cleaned out his place, we might throw it away, not knowing what it was, and I was so bad. And he had asked my sister who lives in Washington, and she couldn’t. And so she gave them to me. And I said, I’ll find because he wanted a burial for these ashes with with Jewish rights. And so I was able to do that through a local to local rabbis and a woman who found it was a co founder of the Holocaust, speaker’s bureau, here in the triangle region of North Carolina, where I live.
And so I was on the committee with the two rabbis and a couple of other people to play on this service. And it was attended by the mayor, all the news organizations, and one of my jobs on the committee was to put out a news release and let everybody know about the service. And some kind soul drove my cousin from his little trailer in the mountains where he lived to the service, so he could be there. But he was in a wheelchair, he’s very overweight. And so they gave me the honor of carrying the ashes in a wooden box, with a Star of David carved on top, to the grave site that that had been dug for these ashes. And as we filed by, there were Holocaust survivors at the service. And I heard them say, for my mother, for my father, for my sister, for my brother, and I picked up some dirt, and I put it inside, on top of the little casket and I said, for my father and for my grandfather.
And it was like, things that come full circle, the two sides of my family, the Jewish side and the Gentile side, in this last chapter, come together through these ashes. And it was very moving my husband who is not well, neither of us is are believers. We don’t have religion isn’t a part of our lives. But he said he was the only other than my cousin, the only non Jewish person sitting under the tent watching this. And the cameras pan that we saw, we saw the people under the tent on TV, and my husband was crying. He said I was the only because I was the only guy crying on camera and, and I was like, I wasn’t even belonging there. Right. But that tells you the kind of man he is people. When he’s moved, the tells you how inspiring and moving that whole thing was. It’s it was it. For me, you know, I’ve always felt like, Oh, well, I think of Adrienne Rich’s essay called split at the root. She had a Gentile mother and a Jewish father. And I always felt that that I had one foot in each camp, but belonged fully to neither. My siblings all feel their Southern Baptists, and they’re still very, very much practicing Southern Baptist. But in the ceremony, it pulled the two halves together, temporarily. And I felt a sense of wholeness within myself, even though I didn’t feel like I could really be a Jew. And I knew I couldn’t be a Southern Baptist, I left that behind a long time ago.
So because you were torn in between. I’m sorry. You were torn in between both worlds.
Yes, in the Jewish world was much more fascinating to me, just because my cousins, my second cousins on that side of the family were so accomplished. They were ballet dancers, they were they became one is an orchestra conductor. Another one worked for Broadway. And that they’re they’re all extremely interesting and accomplished. And I can’t say that about the other side of my family. My cousin is still alive. He still lives in the mountains in a trailer. And it’s amazing that he’s still alive. But we talk. We have completely different belief systems and political beliefs, and political views, which can create huge rifts. But because he’s alone, and he has no one else. We talk and he talks with my siblings, and I tell him, I love him. Because partially because he he brought those ashes to light. And he was a big enough man. Realize that what he thought and felt as a younger man was wrong.
I asked him once, why did you collect Nazi memorabilia? And he said, I don’t know. I just did. So he’s never, he was never able to tell me what was the fascination with that. But in today’s political climate, now you can see a fascination
with it. Right? Right. I I’ve been to a couple concentration camps in Germany. And it’s something you can never get out of your eyes. Right, those things once you see it, you cannot get it out. You can never unsee it.
That’s right. I went to Theresa and start. I took my sons to the Czech Republic, when they were 19, because I thought that might be the last time they’d be willing to travel with me. And I took them to. It’s also called terracing, which was the show camp, you know, the Nazis used it in propaganda, say, look how well these people are treated. And they actually gave them toothbrushes and gave them things that they normally didn’t have just for this film. But they were shipped off from terrorism to the death camps. And there are also a lot of people political prisoners shot there. And I was standing between a couple of the buildings, one that has the, the barracks where all the prisoners slept, you know, in tears have like, three or four bunk beds high and, and the yard and I thought as I was standing there, in this soil is the blood of people who were shot by the Nazis, for being Jewish, for being against what The Nazi Party believed in for acting on their beliefs. There’s blood under my feet in the soil. And that was so penetratingly deep and awareness for me that I’ve carried it with me and my sons are now 42.
So this was quite a long time ago. So I understand what you’re saying about. You can never forget when you see that, no, you know, that ceramic tile table that they would do surgeries on to test things. And the troughs that they had for the blood to drip down into buckets. Yes. And the showers that they had in the concentration camps that everyone thought they were lining up to go in for a shower, and it was a death your gas sentence. And it wasn’t just what you saw with your eyes. It’s it’s the environment. It’s the feeling it’s the energy is still there. The the, I don’t know, it’s like going to an old horror house like a haunted house kind of feeling. It’s an eerie, eerie feeling even in the nicest place in there. Yes. Still.
Beautiful day. And yeah. I think you’re right there is Ms. Smells
like there’s still the smell is still lingering there. And it’s very moving and very poignant to to even comprehend. What actually happened is unbelievable.
Yes, my son’s couldn’t take it. I mean, they. They wanted to leave. And I and I said, Well, if you if you don’t want to go through these carts, you can sit out you’re on a bench until I’m done. But they they couldn’t handle it. Yeah. No, it’s very moving.
Something you’ll never forget. That’s for sure. And the feeling is, um, I just don’t understand how anyone can can do. That movement was unbelievable. The strength of that group. Unbelievable. Thank goodness, it’s all behind us now. And we’ve learned so much, I guess is what we were supposed to do. I’m not really sure But well, father’s lots of maths. I mean, he was a dentist. He had a business. He was working. He had income. He had a plane he had property was when he committed suicide was a stuff in order, like did he have it planned?
I don’t think so. I think my mother had to do a lot of work on your state. We also had a cottage at Lake about an hour’s drive away. And he bought for lots because they dammed they dammed up a pass and he knew that that lake would be very popular recreational property. And right now, you nobody could afford a lot up there. And he bought for three as an investment and one to put our own family’s cottage on. But my mother, she didn’t consult with us. Because I would like to have maybe gone in with my siblings and kept that cottage but she sold the three lots and the cottage and had she held on to them just for maybe another decade, she would have quadrupled the investment for sure. He was a very smart man. He was he was brilliant that way. He was brilliant in so many ways. And he had so much to give and so much life left. And what hurt me the most was my grant, my son’s never got to know him as a grandfather. He saw them once when they were six weeks old.
And then yeah, that was it. And he treated them like little space aliens. He was just, you know, he wasn’t there. At that point. He was so far gone, that I put one of my son’s in his lap and he just sat there and didn’t say anything and I was afraid he’d let the baby slip off his lap so I quickly snatched up my son And it was heartbreaking because yeah, I said, Don’t you want to take a fishing? Like I’d love to hunt and fish? I said, you can teach another generation how to fish these, these boys will adore you. But yeah, nothing could keep them on this planet
now obviously had something else to do something bigger to to accomplish obviously. Sounds like he, he had it in him to leave it just not really sure what all that was about, but I don’t think we ever know. Even with the celebrities, do we ever No, no, no.
I mean, I think with Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I think happening both in the same year that that raise the profile of suicide because these two people, they were at the peak of their careers. Yeah, they had everything to live for just like mine. And yet, and we’re smart and intelligent and successful and just doesn’t make sense. Really? Yeah.
Those of us left behind, or left to grapple with that. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it’s not fair in so many ways, I guess, what kinds of things what, what kinds of things now that you have a blended family? You have to look at your life now, in a better viewpoint than what your dad didn’t do. He was so smart in so many ways, and then just didn’t put the pieces of the pie left together for everybody. And right now, um, what kinds of things? You know, are you concerned about? having it all in place for you guys, because blended families, and you’re older as well. So it’s not like, you know, you have little kids or anything?
Um, yeah, I bought a book. It has a funny title, but it’s actually very important. It’s called, now I’m dead. What you need to know. And in it, there’s space for you to put all of your bank account numbers, everything, everything to do with your state, who your attorney is. And both my sons have my Living Will my my health care? My husband is my health care power of attorney. But both my sons also have that. And so yeah, I think, and that book will stay in a very obvious place. Because your children don’t want to talk about it. Yeah, you know.
And we’re, I find our generation wants to talk about it more than our parents. Did. Our parents wanted to keep everything a secret for some reason. Exactly. Yeah. But it is getting better. But I think our kids don’t want to talk about it, because they don’t want to think that it might happen. Right? So it’s just not up for a discussion. But luckily, in our program, we have worksheets to have hold family conversations, either with your friend, family member, brother, sister, mom, dad, whoever, but it helps you with a worksheet to be able to go down the worksheet and actually make tic marks about, you know, if I did get sick, what do I want that to look like? Where do I want to live? Do I want to live in someone else’s a family member’s home? Do I want to go into a care facility of some sort? What do I want that picture to look like all of those kinds of things, not just death. But if I got sick if I couldn’t see if I couldn’t pay? Or if I if I couldn’t get around? What kinds of things do I want it to look like? And it’s so complicated in a blended family?
Because you want to be fair to both sides. Right? So yeah, it’s definitely something to think about for our listeners to to start thinking about, you know, you can have your Will you can have your power of attorney. But what if we’re immobile on eyes? If what if you weren’t both in your right frame of mind? You know, there’s so many different instances of something happen. You could be in a car accident tomorrow. Yeah. And be in a wheelchair or Not being able to move around for a year or two. What do you want that to look like? So yeah, I appreciate your story. Because after being in Europe and seeing that for myself, no wonder someone wants to commit suicide after. Because those, that world was definitely something very scary. Very scary. And I’m so glad it’s behind us that the Holocaust is but anti Semitism is on the rise and be around forever. But it’s it’s pretty scary right now. Yeah.
We just had a 20 year old on Sunday. And Ontario, drive up in a pickup truck that was definitely meant to happen. It wasn’t a mistake. They say it was it was a terrorism terrorist act. Hit a family going for a walk three generations, five people four died. And the nine year old son is living in the hospital so far
without a family.
So and they were all Muslim, religious background. And it’s just so sad to think that someone would want to do that. I, you know, it’s uncomprehending, especially in this time of the world. But like you said, there’s weird things going on. Yeah.
I mean, we see it in the rise of Asian hate crimes because of the Coronavirus. And, and I’m glad you brought up Muslims, because there’s certainly a lot of anti Muslim sentiment in the United States. And Jews, you know, minorities, but of course, blacks. Yeah.
Yeah, Black Lives Matter. Yeah. And now we’ve in Canada, we just had the residential school, find out one of our cities that there’s 215 bodies of children buried with no, no idea of how they died. And no, indigenous. Yeah. And that’s all from the Catholic religious schools. So crazy, crazy things happening all around the world. And it’s no different. It sounds like them, what your wonderful dad had to put up with and all of that struggle. It must have been beautiful for him to be up in that sky, though. Maybe he really liked to be flying in that sky to feel like he was up above everything.
Well, he did love flying, and he renewed his pilot’s license. And he would fly to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for fishing weekend. So he had an old car. But he kept at the Outer Banks.
So when he landed there, he parked his car at the little airstrip there. And he had his fishing weekend and then he fly back home. I mean, he had everything he ever dreamed of. Yeah, he made it happen. Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. Yes. Robin Williams. Well, Robin is more understandable. Because he had a brain disease. Oh, did he body Lewy body dementia. And he knew it. And it’s a terrible, a terrible brain disease. And I can understand his suicide because he didn’t want to burden anyone and become, you know, become a shell of himself and not have any of himself left and I have a good friend whose partner develop Lewy body dementia. And she kept him at home as long as she could. But eventually, she had to put him in a care home and I went with her as support to visit him and I didn’t even recognize him. It was really beautiful. And she felt that it would have been better had he died much sooner because he wasn’t living and such was in this constant state of grace. grief and wanting the best for him. And it was terrible. So I can imagine somebody wanting for themselves when they get the news that that’s going to be their future.
Yeah, that’s true. What about? What kind of final note do you have for our listeners?
Oh, well, um, as I think back about what I’ve written and the choices I’ve made, I say, always listen to that internal voice you have. I learned at my excuse me, I learned at my peril. All right, I ignored it at my peril. And when I learned to listen to that voice, then I usually was doing the right thing. So there’s a part of us that knows that is true and deep and real, and loving and kind. And if we can stay connected to that part of us, then life is so much better, regardless of how old you are, or what physical ailments you’re dealing with.
That’s really, really beautiful. Thank you. And we should and I think the younger we are, the more we don’t write. It’s not till we’re older that we realize that there’s these two. I call them little people on our shoulders. One that kind of says, oh, Tina, it’s fine. And the other guys other one says, No. So those are my inside. people that come out and talk to me. sounds really weird. Doesn’t that when I set it out? Well, I have my critic that sits on my shoulder when I’m writing like, that’s no good. You know, start over again. This paragraph sounds terrible. Yeah, and I, you know, I can go back and get I gotcha.
Yeah. Isn’t that the truth? No. Well, thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed your story. I think so many will, because it resonates with their lives, I’m sure. In some culture, some religious background or or if you’ve been in Europe, I mean, you can feel that I definitely feel it. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for writing the book.
Thank you. Thank you for speaking with me. I’ve enjoyed it.
Oh, thank you. Well, listeners, oh, my goodness, it’s that time again. And I just want to continue with our story. Miranda’s story is just so beautiful her information in the box down below. For anybody who wants to grab one of her books, or reach out to her I’m sure she’d be happy to do that. Thank you again, Miranda for coming out. Thank you for watching listeners. Till next time, stay safe. Thank you, everyone. You’re welcome. Be kind, lots of love bye
MIRINDA KOSSOFF
https://www.instagram.com/mirindakossoff/
Accident, Disability Planning, ESTATE PLANNING, Preparedness, Sickness, Small business preparedness
SURVIVING STORMS WITH YOUR PARTNER
Surviving Storms with your partner is a double obstacle because you have to hope you will have the support when you need it the most!
Managing storms in your Life have their new paths, new decisions and new attitude. Our interview with Mike Daly, is outstanding and explicit journey of the United States Air Force, a Lawyer, of course a Cancer survivor. Yes, that is definitely part of the journey too that left Mike legally deaf.
“Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?” – James Baldwin
“In his iconic novel Giovanni’s Room, gay author James Baldwin makes a powerful statement about love. He proclaims that sex and gender don’t matter; all that matters is that two people love each other. Nothing should stand in their way if they have love in their hearts. These words resonated with millions of people who felt like their emotions were invalid because of the gender of the object of their love. With this quote, Baldwin assured them that it didn’t matter because love is love.”
Our story today is called Surviving storms with my partner. And we are going to bring Mike Daly in from Connecticut. And what a wonderful, inspiring story. Especially this month of June, I feel that it’s super important to talk about these things.
Because we don’t always just have one storm that we have happened in our lives. We feel we’re Superman, but we’re really not. But we think we are. And I would like to you know, we just we just think it’s it won’t happen to me. We we don’t prepare for the unexpected. We truly we weren’t prepared for the pandemic. We weren’t prepared for wildfires or hurricanes. When we’re given you know that five minute evacuation notice. It’s unbelievable to you know, what do I take what what do I What do we do next?
Yeah, it’s crazy. And I’ve been in that five minute evacuation. Notice, and it really is life changing. Um, you know, I just wanted to mention your backup plan puts your life all in one place everything that’s all up in your head into one place in case of any unpredictable circumstance. And that takes that aftermath, a painful Aftermath out of a tragedy because you’re prepared and you don’t have to worry. And you don’t have to stress. Yeah. So I’d like to welcome our listeners, our listeners.
So I would like to welcome our wonderful Connecticut guest today. It is going to be very, very huge because Mike didn’t have just one storm hit his life. He had many. And we are going to bring him on right now.
Hey, Mike. Hi, how’s everybody doing today? Awesome. Awesome. I’m just gonna give here a little introduction to every all our listeners here. So Mike comes to us from beautiful Connecticut. And I would like just a second. He has an outstanding, and he has an explicit journey that he talks about with the United States Air Force. He is a lawyer, a pilot, of course, a cancer survivor. And yes, definitely part of the journey that left him legally deaf. And I can’t believe how many storms you have managed. Mike. Unbelievable. Do you want to tell our listeners how this all started? where it began for you?
Well, it kind of was, you know, we have a plan, or we think we have a plan or people have a plan for us. So the plan was graduate high school, and go to college and being from I was born and raised in New York, all of the Irish kids in New York, where do you go to college, you go to Florida, and offline. first cousins went to come. And of course, I was going to follow those steps. Until I realized I didn’t want to go to Fordham. So the first thing was I went home and I broke news to my parents that I didn’t want to Fordham, which was the first storm. And little did, I realized that wasn’t even a storm, the best was yet to come. So when I finally convinced them that a college education was better than no college education, they agreed that I could go to a State University in New York. And then I came home and I told you that I had decided that I wasn’t going to go to college because I was going to get married.
Surviving Storms with your partner and that was the said, that was the big storm. So the question, of course, then became, how is it that you are going to do this? And I said, Well, I’m gonna enlist in the military, which was not wasn’t planned, it was seven days, Southeast Asia was still an issue when it was difficult, you know, my parents weren’t, you know, particularly thrilled at the prospect of you know, their eldest son, enlisting in the military and perhaps finding himself in Southeast Asia.
So my father said to me, which is one of the things that has stuck with me through my entire journey was, acts have consequences. And if you take the action, know that the whatever comes from that you are responsible for, you have to dress good, bad or indifferent. And one of the things that he had said was, this is the day that you go to college. So if you’re looking for a college education, go now, because you have two sisters that have a brother, that’s 14 years younger than you. So I have three additional children to educate, and two weddings to pay for, because with that switch you did back in the day. And so if you don’t go now, don’t come home thinking that you can say, Okay, I want to go to college now. Because your decision not to go now means that when you’re ready to go, you figure it out. But so that was the first thing I didn’t have a plan for.
So I went into the military. My father didn’t give me some good advice. He said to me, you know, the military might not be your career. So make sure you figure out what you’re there, you’re going to have them teach you so that you have a skill that translates when you come out, which was sort of interesting, because I got involved with telecommunications and air to ground communications.
I was very fortunate that I was trained and my background investigation came back clear. And I was able to get into air to ground communications for the National Emergency airborne command post an Air Force One. So I got excellent training. I had a skill that that was that translated. And ultimately I was stationed back in Washington DC working on presidential communications. When my I stepping back before I went to, so I got after I got my training. The wedding was being planned. And that wedding plan didn’t go particularly well and it became apparent that I’m at the ripe old age of eight 18 I was not ready to be married. And so we broke off the engagement. sort of interesting because now my plan has changed, my life has changed.
And again, I don’t have necessarily have a plan because this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. But I mean, the best of it. And I certainly not consider not getting married a storm, especially as things begin to unfold. But it was different, it was different than I wasn’t prepared. So I found myself at 18 years old, being stationed at what they considered a remote base in Germany, where there was no barracks, there was no housing, I didn’t speak German, and I had to buy a car and I had to find an apartment and I had to learn to grocery shop, because the closest based was about an hour away.
But you figure it out, but you figure it out. Guess as I went through, I go through life, finding out more and more that I can hold on to that actions have consequences. But I, but that, but only enables me to say, Okay, this happened now. And what am I gonna do? I have never really reached the point where I need to have an action plan. There’s never been a decision if this if then. So I made the best of it. I had a great career, I got that as transferred back to Washington, DC, and I met somebody. And it was a man. And I started to come to terms with emotions that I didn’t really understand. But I did know, that couldn’t stay in the military. Because back in the 70s, the theory was if you were in the military, and you were gay, you were considered a national security. And who’s going to because national security risk then somebody who’s working on presidential communications and national airborne, emergency everyone command plus communications, but me.
So I felt like I had a target on my back. So again, we’re faced with a change in plan. Thanks to my dad, I did. I didn’t necessarily have a plan for what he do next. But I was prepared for whatever happens next, because he encouraged me to not look at the military as a career in case I wanted the ability to go out. Well, as I was getting out, Mike.
Yeah. Is it is it different now in United States Air Force?
I don’t I you know, it goes back and forth. You know, I’ve understand they’ve had the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. So you could stay in and as long as you didn’t advertise the fact your sexuality, and nobody was allowed to ask you about your sexuality. And I understand that under the Trump administration, they changed it so that it was not as as open and affirming. And quite frankly, oh, but there, yeah, it’s up. But right. Yeah, you’re back. There you go.
Okay. Switch it a little bit to your right. My right. Here, no, your left. Better. There you go. I can see your head. Right. There’s my symbol in the corner. And it’s right in your eye there. So yeah. There we go. There we go. You’re back. So you think, yeah, there you go. You think it’s different now?
I think it probably is a little bit different. I mean, back in the 70s, it was an absolute. So when I wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find whether this was a passing phase, or for real or not. I mean, I had gone in thinking that I was signed all the paperwork and everything. And suddenly, you know, you meet somebody and everything turns upside down.
So do you think these feelings just really like they came out of nowhere and you weren’t really sure you weren’t understanding yourself? Is that part of the problem?
I think? Well, I think part of the problem was was that I wasn’t understanding myself. Part of the problem was, you know, I had never considered it. I don’t remember, particularly being attractive. Certainly not that I can recall being attracted to men when I was like in high school or anything, whether that was my own fear, my refusal to acknowledge it, or just I’m not but It was never anything that I addressed or was concerned with, right or dictating, you know, did I, you know, was any good, what I suppose a good relationship, I was thinking that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this person. And it was, you know, and it was a traditional, you know, was a woman relationship, right.
So, it wasn’t until I, you know, I spent two years in Germany on my own, I, and I dated, and then I went, I was transferred to NBC. And I dated, and I met somebody that big I became friends with that just led me to have a different set of emotion, not understand what was happening to me, knowing that it wasn’t a one afternoon or a one week thing, it was an issue that, that that remained at the forefront caused me a lot of concern, both because I didn’t know how to deal with it. Plus, know if it was reciprocal. And honestly, at that point in time, I didn’t know how to find out it was. So but I did know that it was occupying enough of my time, and thoughts to be taken seriously, which meant that I didn’t believe that I had a future in the military.
I despite the fact as I made the decision to leave the military. People saying to me, but you know, Mike, you know, you’ve got good career I was, I was young, I was in a very a field where I’ve always going to be comfortable a field that I knew where I could be answered, I had been promoted. as quickly as possible, I had made all my promotions The first time I was eligible. So from both a career advancement perspective, as well as a technical perspective, and and I had started to go to college, when I was in Washington, DC I was taken, like I said, University of Maryland, everything seemed on track, but for this other feelings, this other feeling. And it actually was and and the other overriding theme in life is everybody’s named Mike.
So my name is Mike, the gentleman that I found myself wanting to be romantically involved with his name was Mike. And it was his father that actually gives me my gives rise to my second monitor. So his father, I, who I met a bunch of times, couldn’t understand why I wanted to get out the military. And I couldn’t tell them, you know, what am I supposed to say, you know, I think I might have a crush on your son. Yeah, just kind of puts me in this awkward position. You know, so you can’t say that. But you know, so basically, he said, What are you going to do? And I said, I’m finished my degree. And who knows, maybe I’ll go to graduate, maybe I’ll go to law school. And then I immediately said to him, but people like me, don’t go to law school. So I’ll probably just get my degree and get a job and do something. So he said to me, you know, what do you mean, people like you, you don’t go to law school. He said, when you’re my age. And you said yourself, she was I wonder why I go to law school.
He said, I just I said, he said, I want you to just get up and go and look in the mirror? Because there’s your answer. Because the only thing stopping you from doing anything is yourself. And when you accomplish something, I want you to get up when you say, Gee, I wonder how I how that happened? Or how I did that, or anything you need to happen. Go look at me, again. Because there’s your answer, you get it. So I had both of these ideas, you know, actions have consequences, which I to heart. And then if you don’t do something or do accomplish something, it’s because you did it or you told yourself you couldn’t do it. But there was some there was still though, if you tried and there was never a discussion if you try and it doesn’t work out, whether because the person in the mirror I can control the outcome which I found out later on, or you know, the need for a backup plan.
So despite the fact that my everything in my life kept changing, I recognize that the action or the change had a consequence. I and I would also recognize that I’m responsible for it. But with that yet and figure out okay, what’s the next step? So I came out of the military and I got a job working for American Airlines. And it was it was was a good ride me while I was there, I came to terms with what I was feeling, realized that I was in fact gay.
A little bit, it gave me a little bit of space to, to allow your career to continue, but allow space for your emotions and feelings to figure out where you’re at with that.
And it was actually kind of funny, because I had a meeting room, there was no pressure, there was no pressure to date, there was no pressure for to not D, I could just be open to the stability. And I was able to support myself. So I was in a position where I could continue my education. And I could move forward with my life in whatever direction it went, still not having a plan. So I met somebody whose name also is Mike. And we, we dated for many, many months before I could even decide what it was that I wanted to do that I could be sure that this was what I wanted. He Fortunately, he was very patient. That was kind of our first storm. You know, I mean, I think many times were scratching his head saying, you know, what are we doing with this lunatic who can’t make up his mind about anything? You obviously have a thing for Mike’s. Oh, that I mean, that’s, you know, every pretty buddy was Mike. But, you know, fortunately, he he was patient, he dealt with me, he kind of waited until I sort of figured things out. I was ready to make make the move, and it would go now looking back 43 years later, it obviously was the right.
You know, we were supposed to be together because, you know, he became my support, I became his support. And we decided to make a certain commitment. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, because when we made that commitment, we also that was probably the only time in my life I’ve had a plan. Because what we did was we bought one and bought a second home. And he went through all of the legal mechanics that we needed to go to to be to be sure that we could, if there was an illness, we had access to each other that we were able to make decisions with respect to each other’s care. We could make decisions with respect to each other’s finances as well as own. We both had conversations with our families. So interestingly enough, not about the nature of our relationship, just the fact that we had invested together and everything. And we, so if anything happened, nobody’s family should expect anything, because everything was going to the other. And it was sort of interesting, because my parents never asked any questions needed. Hey, the two families came together like any other relationship. Mike’s Mike’s folks and Mike were so good that my parents table for all of my for both my sister and my brother’s weddings.
Surviving Storms with your partner is a whole bunch of obstacles like when my parents became friends with his parents, we spent holidays together. And nobody ever nobody ever asked any questions about what the needs are really, two boys, everybody just accepted it. So from that respect, I think I was pretty lucky because it was one big change in my life that I didn’t have to plan for. Because I know so many people that have had, you know, issues with their family issues with their sibling issues with their social network and everything. And you know, Mike and I were pretty charmed, our parents accepted us they know, we made the decision. When we bought a home, we were going to tell people that we had separate rooms or anything, we weren’t going to advertise the situation to the neighbors into the community, a large book, we weren’t going to deny it. And we weren’t going to talk about going away with someone or doing something with someone it was always Mike and Mike. And if people chose to question us, we would answer them. And if people chose not to question, we were going to let them accept whatever was going on in their own terms. So it was sort of interesting, because neither nobody in either family ever asked anything.
SAME SEX PARTNERS
That’s really nice. Isn’t that when you think about it, because there’s so many family I mean, who doesn’t have family issues? Right. Right. So especially with same sex partnerships, and and trying I think it’s even more important to have a financial and, and not even just a spiritual but a financial plan of, of small and big things in your life. more organized. And then the average heterosexual partnership because of, of the ability to make a plan together. And and I think what happens when a man and woman get married, they don’t really get all that stuff together normally, like they just get on with their lives, they did their wedding they did their whatever their parties, and then they just both work and and go on from there. But I really like how you
said that you try to get your life organized with each other. And that’s super important.
Well, it was important. And one of the reasons that it was important is because the Lord, there was no mechanism to do it for us. But traditional, we never had the opportunity to have a traditional marriage recognize our relationship. So if something happened to me or something happened to Mike, and we didn’t have those documents in place, we could we it would have been impossible. Absent our families recognize our relationship and agreeing for us to take care of each other, you know, we can have life insurance. But what happens, you know what happens with all of that stuff, if we or for that matter, what happens is later on when I found out that I had cancer and stuff, what happens when those decisions need to be made, and everything so that we were all very aware of the fact that that we needed those protections. And that was one of the things kind of that that really made our cemented our relationship was you know, our concern out those those things.
And you know, those are pretty big life decisions. When you start buying homes together in planning. You’re not relying on the Lord to take care of you but relying on each other to to affirmatively take those steps and take that time to make sure that the other person is, you know, is taken care of. I think what happens is that cements the relationship in a different sort of a way than a traditional marriage and stuff because it does, it says to a certain extent . And and that’s one of the ways when you don’t have a sodomized or legal ending. I think that’s one of the ways that you show your partner that you’re all in.
But we all should do that. Well, we doesn’t matter what laws are in place really. Right? We should all be thinking about, okay, I want to make sure you’re going to be okay. I want to make sure that I’m going to be okay, if I get sick. And you know, can you look after me? Would you be able, you know, like looking at all of those viewpoints. And that’s, that’s so awesome that and I just wish everybody did that whether there’s a law or not, the laws change and we need to be better prepared. Right. Yeah.
So yeah. You know, and, you know, so and, you know, so when we bought the house and everything, you know, we we, we knew that we were going to need to play and we both, you know, we had though we had our first house, which is where Mike’s folks lived, then we had the second house, that we really kind of needed to plan for that. Um, and then, you know, I finished college. And it was sort of interesting, because then it became the decision of what, what’s next? You know, are you going to stay at American Airlines? Are you you know, and if you are, what’s your career path. And one of the things was on. Because we both worked at very different deployments. I was on the technical side, and he was on.
And believe it or not, you’ll you’ll kind of laugh Tina I knowing that the challenges to get myself on tours to do this podcast, I was actually doing data processing equipment and computer system design and everything. But that was many years ago, and now is a very different world. And now it’s sort of funny. Once again, I guess I should have stayed up on the technology, because then I could work myself on and I wouldn’t have tortured you the way I did. Try to get up on the air and do this podcast. Well, you know, things change every year. You just can’t keep that mic. It’s, it’s all cool. It’s all cool.
Thank goodness I have I have my background in Microsoft Certified systems engineer. Sorry. It was all trouble troubleshooting. Absolutely, yeah. So no problem. So we decided, you know, so what do you do next?
I really I was in my late 20s. I didn’t particularly feature myself staying in this job was 65 years old. Mike and I were in different An area. So it wasn’t a transfer within the company together wouldn’t have been the easiest thing to do. And even if I did, my job would have stayed this, his mind has changed, but my job would have stayed the same. So I decided to go to graduate school and I went to law school. And so for the next three years, once again, it was kind of all about me. You know, I was I worked full time, you know, so I, the household and stuff.
So what with the way that this would work out, was I would get up in the morning, I would study, I would go to school, I leave school, and I would drive into Hartford and I would work usually from like four o’clock in the evening until one o’clock and then do like, computer simulations and other things. And then I would go home, and I would fall asleep, and I would get up in the same routine. And then the weekends. Were pretty much dedicated to, you know, study catching up, you know, and we were in the middle of, you know, work renovating a home, we but you know, what we could afford, which was a handyman special, so many weekends, you know, or many nights after work or many weekends, you know, the goal was to just get a couple of sheets of sheetrock up on the walls or anything. And ultimately, we finished right before graduated from law school, we finished renovating the house.
Um, so there was a lot of stuff going on. And things weren’t particularly always easy. Because of all of that. I wasn’t feeling very well. And I said to me, I was talking to my mother who is was, is that that was a diabetic. And I kind of told her how I was feeling. And she kind of raised her eyebrows and made an appointment for me with her endocrinologist. And when they brought me in and started doing the testing, I rang all the bells. And so in the middle of going to graduate school in the middle of renovating a house in the middle of trying to get everything, I found out that I was a type one diabetic, and I needed to learn how to adjust my diet, adjust my exercise, manage my sleep and everything around the need to give myself shots.
Which was you know, which was a very big deal, it was a big lifestyle change. And you know, as always, it was all about me, no plan, no discussion about what happens if either one of us ever gets serious mess, but fortunately, you know, Mike was there, I’m rolled with it, Mike took the time, he learned probably he was more willing and open to learn than I was because I was much more comfortable defying. And I recognize that many ways. I was fortunate because it didn’t happen to me when I was 17. And it didn’t happen to me when I was 20. When you know you you want to out have pizza and you want to just kind of do what all of your friends are doing. Because that’s the most important thing. Other than trying to figure out if you’re gay or straight, but the secret that I didn’t have, you know, but being a diabetic, you can’t keep it a secret. So, as always, you know, Mike came through with the master plan, Mike came through and said, You know, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, you know, we don’t have a plan. He didn’t plan for it. Maybe we should have planned because my mother was a diabetic, but you know, we didn’t. So once again, he stepped up and you know, do what you have to do.
Which go here, while you were doing all those things, you were probably eating wrong, and you were probably not exercising. Right. So it it said, check your health, Mike.
Yeah. So suddenly, you know, instead of being able to grab a Burger King on my way from, from Springfield, Hartford to go to work, it became either finding a place where I could get a reasonable meal or planning in the midst of everything to have food with me that was not going to you know, was not going to tip the scale and, and it was also a lot of coming to terms. I mean, Mike had just pay close attention to me because oftentimes, if your blood, especially if it’s going very low, you don’t right, you don’t necessarily realize it and that’s actually much more dangerous. In the immediate, then, that high blood sugar, blood sugar will affect you over time. A low blood sugar in essence makes you incapable of operating a motor vehicle or anything.
So he really had to be very much on the ball and it was an It was incredibly stressful because there weren’t you know, now we’re talking about the mid 80s there weren’t card phones, there weren’t cell phones he couldn’t fall in said you remember to he, he could go and say how are you feeling or anything else? So And I was gone from, you know, six or seven o’clock in the morning, until, until midnight or one o’clock at, you know, so there was a lot, you know, was a lot of stress and there was there was no plan. Other than, you know, when I got to work, obviously, I would make it a point to call them and say, you know, or I’d say in the bill, but you know, once again, we had, you know, no plan, which takes me back to my two monitors, which probably are not there, okay. But there should be a third which is make a plan, which actions have consequences. And, you know, and you got to make it work. And you know, you’re you are responsible for yourself, if it goes right, you look in the mirror if it goes wrong in the mirror.
So, but, but still no plan. Yeah. So I was on fortunately, you know, so, either. Either way, when you’re thinking about this where you know, your life is going to change, I was going to law school. Nobody was under the impression that I was going to continue in American lines as an attorney. But there was no plan. There was no what Where do you want to work? Don’t know, what kind of job do you want? You don’t know?
What kind of law Do you want practice I want to do with planning and taxes. Well, that didn’t fit with my personality at all. I had been out in the community I was when I was born networker. I thrived on meeting new people and new experiences and everything. And there I was putting myself into a position where I would be miserable. The last thing I could do is sit in a room by myself, and draft documents and do that other stuff. Lots of people thrive on it, but I need to socialize the outlet. But even even as we went through three years of law school, there was never a discussion. The plan was that I was going to graduate. And the long term plan was there was going to be a lawyer. That was it. So when I you know, fortunately, I was very lucky when I was the tester plan had been to take my last school course, we were going to go to Europe, take a vacation, and then we were going to come back and I’m just going to resign from the company which would have terminated my flight benefits. And and my health insurance and a whole lot of other stuff. No, we didn’t talk about getting health insurance.
No, we didn’t shop around and we had diabetic in the house who wouldn’t be unemployed who didn’t make any plans for health insurance. Yeah, but once again, I got lucky because the the end of the in the middle of third year of law school, the company offered a severance package that included a year salary and an include lifetime health and medical insurance and I qualified even though we knew that we should have had a plan, we chose to not focus on it. And we got lucky, we got lucky because what ultimately happened was I was able to leave the company in March instead of waiting till May. And I was able to leave with money to take us over as well as health insurance that was so critical for my medical issues.
But no plan. And Gail when I came out, I passed the bar and I found a job and I tried my hand at a state planning and tax law for probably about 60 days. Fortunately, we had a litigator in the same firm who took me to court with him and I took to that like a doctor. So I for almost 30 years was a litigator but don’t help me. And you’re with people though, so it was right up your alley. Well, yeah, it was right up my alley because I was out networking trying to find business, make connections meet potential clients. I you know, was gregarious, and I was outgoing and as you can tell, I like to talk and and I enjoy problem solving my I have an enjoyable evening if I’m just by myself as you know, I used to follow the Supreme Court like many people follow the New York Yankees. So I I don’t mind sitting there and speculating on you know, what’s Neal gorgeous, got to watch Sondra Sotomayor gonna do and everything and then reading a decision or reading a book about the philosophy of the law or anything else. So yes, what was great If you like that, if you like that, yeah, unfortunately, I did. Fortunately, I did. I mean, I also liked the New York Yankees, but but I liked doing that. So it was, you know, so it was good and I enjoyed it and, you know, putting the argument together and, and you know, and having a thing come to you.
And, you know, tell you what their issues are and you figuring out the strengths and the weaknesses and making recommendations. Now, you also need need to plan that. And you don’t, because law school doesn’t train you for any of that law school does not prepare you for the prospect of people trusting their lives to you. And you making decisions, you don’t make the decision, you make the recommendation. But you know, what, you, you make a recommendation and you say you should do this cause and you’re not usually whether it’s a financial issue, or it’s a marital issue or anything else, people aren’t necessarily in the best position to make those decisions. So you do find yourself guiding people through their lives. And nothing prepares you for the emotional toll that that takes because you home at night. You go home at night, and your life remains the same. But all of those people whose lives you touched, they are not saying often times, they’re very, very, very fewer.
You know, when I started out, I started out litigating in a general practice, and I was doing divorce work. And it used to frighten me because you know, that you’d get into you get into the, you know, into a courtroom and you’d settle something, and there will be a lot of pressure for you to not only settle the case, but to resolve it that day. And I like to do that. Because you don’t know, you know, something sounds good. But you need to live with it. You need to figure it out. And I kind of had a lot of people aggravated because I said yep, I think we’ve got a deal. And we’ll finalize it next week. And I would tell my client, you go home and you live with it. And you think it and, and things so I just want you to know, which was unpopular. So then you’re swimming upstream.
Yeah. But I found my niche, I found my niche. And, and, and it was going well, and then something else hit. Right so that it was going well. And then we came back from Europe and I had a an odd rope on my back. And somebody pointed about to me and I scratched it and it bled. And Mike said to me, you know, you need to get that checked out. So I tell him the next day from work, and it was a you need to get that out. And I was they came over the next day. And Mike said, Have you made an appointment yet now, we had a very good friend, that was physician and he was a surgeon. So my thought was I should just call Tom, he’ll cut it off. And that’ll probably be it. So finally, I came home after about a week and I said okay, so this is how it works. You either make that appointment based on your schedule, or I don’t care if you’re in front of if you’re planning to be in front of the United States Supreme Court. If I have to make that appointment, you don’t come out of here.
You know, and we never talked about what it was we never talked about what it could be it was an annoyance. It was annoyance. So I went, I call I made sure that I called and I made an appointment and I went in and I had to taken out this friend of mine, this friend of ours, Tom, so not a problem, Mike, you’re fine, nothing to worry about. I think, you know, we had mutual friends and one of their daughters was getting married. And he said to me, You know, I’m sure I’ll see you at a meeting give my best and we’ll talk soon. And about four days later, I was in the office. And I got a call. And I was a smoker at the time. Like I smoked from the time I was 14 or 15 you know in the military smoking at then was a big deal because you got to get out of formation. They you know, the old term smoking if you got it would spray. Little did we know them what we know now but anyway.
So I’m in my office and I get a call from Tom. And he says want to see you Michael tonight. And what’s going on? He says I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll discuss it with you guys tonight. And I was like well, if you don’t tell me why I’m coming. I’m not going to come. So he told me that you know I had a fairly dire diagnosis and that I had a form of cancer that, you know, was pretty blunt with Brad. And he needed to talk to us about what our options were, and how we wanted to approach this. And he wanted to make patients receive both assert, uh, you know, scheduled surgery and also to see an oncologist. So I kind of had them figure out how I call my and tell him this, you know, without dropping a bomb on them on the phone. And what year are we talking about for this? At this point, we’re talking about 2004. We had kind of coasted I got I graduated from law school in 19. You know, in 1988.
We had we had our home, we bought in a larger home, we sold a home, things were going well, life was good, life’s good. I was very fortunate. You know, I mean, Mike and I were traveling, we both had flight benefits from American Airlines. Everything was going, you know, we feel we were finally we weren’t struggling to put anybody through school. You had more time, we had more time we were spending more time together. We unfortunately weren’t spending any time talking about the next phase or what if, or anything else, like every couple we have a good days are bad days, we had some days where I’m sure probably more than me, scratched his head and said, you know, what have I done here? But you know, and you know, during that time, you know, we lost mom to cancer, and you know, so there was good times and bad times. Like it like that, you know, life life happens.
So, but we had never discussed what was going to happen if one of us had serious illness, we never discussed what was going to happen if one of us, God forbid, had cancer. I mean, we didn’t, we didn’t think that those things would happen to us. If we didn’t, they wouldn’t happen to us, or we just didn’t think. So. I called Mike and I said, you know, Tom wants to see us and we went in and he kind of outlined his, you know, his concerns were and the fact that I needed surgery, and the fact that I needed to go into chemotherapy and stuff. Oh, what do you do that what happened, believe it or not, was my dad was in hospice at that point.
And so I was told this, and I was told that, you know, and, you know, give you a diagnosis, they also say, don’t go on the internet, don’t do this. And don’t do that. And I didn’t do any of that. But my dad, so he also knew that the that my chances of survival were not very good. And I’m like, why is that? Did they ever sink? Why?
Well, because the form of cancer I have, is it. It doesn’t act normally as a cancer doesn’t. It’s also very great. It’s very aggressive, and it’s virile. And so normally what happens is be asymptomatic at the beginning, it’s usually test the size to other organs and and other places in your system before it’s ever diagnosed and treated. Before it’s shown its little head, right. So and at that point, they didn’t know what my prognosis was specific to me. They only knew the fourth can’t based on the biopsy and everything in the prognosis wasn’t good.
But unfortunately, I had to start I couldn’t go through treatment because the following morning, I got notified by my father’s physicians that I needed to have being inside I suppose papers. So I signed the hospice papers, and I called my doctor and I said, You know, I gotta wait, my mother’s got Parkinson’s disease. And I’ve gotten care of this, which, you know, again, you know, what are you going to do? No, Master. Yeah, we didn’t plan for cancer, we didn’t plan for my father. We certainly didn’t plan for them to both happen in the same week. You know, that was pretty upset. You know, he was like, like, you know, every day every day matters. And I was like, Yeah, but these days matter in a very different way. So, so, we got my father taking care of and I went in and I can like, you know, get your treatment. Hat started my treatment, had some issues along the way, like everybody does, you know, you sit No, we used to call it the big red chair club. You know, you sit in those great fluffed, recliners. They’re all red and and, you know, I I couldn’t, I couldn’t let cancer control me.
The deal really was that Mike and Mike came to every single doctor’s appointment, he came to every single scan, he came to every single chemotherapy treatment and everything. But I was struck because I felt like, for the first time in my life, I had no control. So for the guy that needed to recognize that actions had consequences, and that I was responsible for those appointments, and then if it was good or bad, however, it turned out I needed to look in the mirror, but I had no plan. I was just I was floundering, I was floundering plus the fact that was a bit of a control freak. So I decided that cancer wasn’t going to control me, I was going to show the world that I could control it. So the thing that I started to do was I started riding a bicycle, not that I ever thought I was going to be Lance Armstrong. And I was never done a ride in the Tour de France, but that I could do it. And what I started doing is I would ride to my therapy treatments, which was almost 80 miles one way.
And I would try to ride home. And I’d get usually about halfway. And then I would call Mike and I’m done. And we have a point, I’d load the bike in the car, and we would come home, you know, and we would do you know, with all of the stuff that you’ve learned about answer, nausea, the vomiting the body, the inability to eat, I lost a lot of weight I didn’t want to eat I had no appetite. And the game we used to play was we used to go to a restaurant that had mud pie, mud pie was a big, because my everyday it didn’t taste like 10. And it was cool in my mouth. And I was getting sores and I was getting blisters and everything else. But the deal was they had to have meat and vegetables before I could have the mud pie. So it became a bribe bribery thing. And so one thing leads to another. So now I’m writing the by going through these chemotherapy treatments. And then I decided that I’m going to ride in the lance armstrong ride for the roses and in Austin, Texas.
So now I’m training 100 a ride because I cancer is not going to control me, I’m going to control it. And also it gave me an opportunity to raise money for cancer survivorship program across the country. People learning how to live with cancer because one of the things that I realized is that kids young, they can cut the kids are at your body, they can’t ever cut the cancer out of your mind. So I became very much the scan anxiety the fear the something bothers me right?
That’s a strange paint is it and everything. And I was having you know, I was having a fair amount of side effects. I got the chickenpox I got shingles. Wow, a lot of you know, a lot of, but every day I went to chemotherapy, I rode my bike, and I would go to chemotherapy. And I would have a joke. Many, many days. They were filthy jokes. A joke for us today, not what you want me to put on your podcast. But, but because none of us had, you know, we all the group of us became Oh, close that there was no filter, there was no barrier we just communicated. So one of the goals that Mike and always I always had was jaw and I will tell you a quick story.
One of the jokes, we would have the jokes too just to make people laugh. Because the other thing is you never knew you would go there sometimes there’ll be an empty chair. Oh, and of your team. What are your team missing? What missing? Yeah. And you’re almost didn’t want to ask because you hoped that they were just in the hospital. But you know, and you know, so we so So Mike and I became recognized, as you know, the guys and we would do a lot of noise, we’d be noisemakers and we would have all of our jokes and everything else. And one day, one of the aides came and she brought us believe it or not board a sportily and sources for lunch. When you see toward ladies in a boat, at least I did because I’m very sick. have their sixth year I really thought that I said to her What are you expecting us to eat? Is this the medical waste? From the pediatrics lounge Have you like collected up all the four skins and thrown them in a bowl? You know, that’s what tortellini looked like.
And that became He came everybody’s war cry. And he was like, I don’t believe and I said, and then you served it with a sausage. You know. And, you know, when I go back there now for my checkups and everything, they still tell that story and how they would end would never serve tortellini and saw john the same day in the in the US and said, but you know, but it was hard. It was very hard. But so the fundraising became a vehicle became very important to me. And, yeah, the and then what happened was, I had an opportunity to work with a cancer survivorship. So I’m riding my bike, going for chemotherapy, I’m trying to run this practice this law practice. And now I’m trying to raise money.
And then they tell me that the cancer survivorship organization located in Connecticut, so I reach out to them and I, they have a ride. So now I’m writing in two rides, I’m going to Austin, Texas, I’m packing Mike up. And we’re flying to Austin, Texas, he’s not riding a bike, and I’m getting 100 miles.
He doesn’t know what’s going on, I’m still going through chemotherapy treatments, I’m telling them that I’m fine. So that I can do this. He’s doing things like taking a tour of excess capital, while he doesn’t know what I’m doing, or if I’m okay. Fortunately, by that time, we have, you know, we had cell phones so I could stay in contact with stuff came back. And I was writing to this organization in Connecticut, and the doctors told me very specifically, you know, you’re limited to 50 miles. But a friend of mine who was very successful, they owned a company and everything offered, if I could ride the 100 he would match everything I raised in that particular year, I’d raised $35,000. So was huge to get a $7,000 to get a $35,000 match. But I had to coerce my friends to lie so that we made a mistake, misread the sign when you return way in a bike race to go, the shorter loop and you turn the other way to go the longer road, we all agreed that, you know, I was just going to make the mistake, and they were going to follow because they also didn’t want me riding along. And you know, then I was working at the Children’s Hospital with the pediatric and that led me to the Hole in the Wall Gang camp. So what ultimately happened was cancer, I had no plan. I use reacting on a day to day basis to my inability to control my life.
And suddenly, I started making mistakes at work. And it was all starting, it was getting too much because there was no plan. So each day, I had a plan to get through the day or the next thing, but it was always it was always to show cancer never to show me never to show my never to show anybody else that I was in control. It was always really to show cancer and I didn’t recognize what was going on. And what happens again, in that situation is the person that’s closest to you in the world. In my case, Mike would say to me, Mike, what are you trying to do? Yeah, you know, you you’ve got too many irons in the fire. You know, this is your he used to say he says you’re behaving like Don Quixote. You know, you you’ve got your Lance and you’re charging and windmills, Mike, you can’t control this. My way that you pro This is that you take care of yourself. You take care of us, you come home at night, you sleep you rest. You don’t find another project, that you somehow convince yourself that cancer is not you.
Because you can do that yourself. So we had almost the perfect storm because we had actions have consequences. We have it want to do it. And you do it go look in the mirror. And if you don’t do it, and you go look in the mirror, but we have no plan. So my plan to be cancer was my plan was to beat it every day at what I was doing. So I made some mistakes in my practice, which caused a whole host of additional problems. And then I happened to mention one day to my secretary. I’m one of these guys you can tell that you know always talks and my hands are going and everything else and I we do the Hey Jen, get this Hey, Jen, what do you think about this, she was my you know, the person that worked directly from me and I had made six people working for me. So there was also that pressure to keep the farm going because I had payroll, these people that were that depended on me to pay their bills that depended on me to provide them with health insurance, and everything.
So, one day I walked out, I said to her, I noticed that when I yell out, hey Jen, could you give me this file? Or some? Or I’d ask the question, nobody was answering my questions. So I walked out and they said, Hey, Jen, what? Are you going deaf? Can’t you hear me? And she said, I’ve been waiting to have this conversation. Let’s go in your office. And she said, go in depth, but I think you probably are. And I said, What are you crazy? And she says, No, no, I spoken to Michael about it. You know, when we had this conversation, I’m going to tell you that I want you to have you here.
So you’re not I had just finished a trial, I had just gotten inverted. How could I not here. And so no plan, I didn’t have a succession plan, I didn’t have a plan to how to wind down my practice. I didn’t have any plan for what to do if I couldn’t practice for a partner that, yeah.
And now they’re telling me that not only am I coming out of chemotherapy, finally, and I’m thinking I won, because I did all of this stuff. Forget about the fact that I was leaving a trail behind me of things that I wasn’t focused on or wasn’t focused on correctly, including my relationship. I mean, you know, I wasn’t obviously, when you’re when all of the lunatic stuff that I’m doing. I wasn’t paying attention to Mike. But he, you know, but he stuck with me, you know, he’s, you know, and he, we had no plan for how we were going to deal with chemotherapy or anything. And, you know, fortunately, I was able to make money. And fortunately, he was able to manage money. And those were the roles that are playing, those were the roles we adopted, which put us in a position where we could weather that storm, both financially and everything else. So they want me to get my hearing. So I’m just getting out chemotherapy. And I’m just thinking that I’m going to get my life back.
Yeah, and now that tell him he can’t hear. So, I, I’m gonna humor them. They want me to go get my eyes, my ears checked, I’m gonna argue with them, I’ll go get my ears checked. So I go to the I go, and they they test my hearing and I am at probably 30% 30 to 40% I’m hearing 30 to 40% of what goes on, like, it’s impossible, I can hear fine. And they’re like, No, you can’t hear my so now where I’m dealing with the fallout from finishing chemotherapy. And now I’m gonna death and assess cause from chemo or the drugs. It was as it was a result from it was one of the chemotherapy drugs that they initially they didn’t find out was they just knew that my hearing was decreasing because and then over time, we found that other patients that were on the same types of drugs, we’re experiencing similar issues. So the way they convinced me that I couldn’t hear because I refuse to accept the I did, I was trying cases I was riding my bike I was communicating with people. And my thing was if I’m deaf how I’m doing that Yeah, so but like my my my sister, Jen said, but Mike, you don’t talk on the phone anymore.
You talk on a speakerphone and it’s very loud and they can hear it down the block. So there were all these little changes going on. I was yelling to them like I always get get me this so what do you think of this are you know, do I have to I have to be and I wasn’t hearing and the answers but it was never may it was them.
It’s funny how your body just assimilates to whatever your if your eyesight starts going your body just manages it like you don’t even realize it near hearing the same. Yeah, it’s it’s crazy. Yeah.
So but I so what they did was when they told me I needed to get hearing aids. So I said sure, sure. I’m gonna wipies because God knows you know, he’s been throwing up telling me that I need to get hearing aids, I should get hearing aids. I’m thinking to myself, getting hearing aids. This is a small price to pay. I’ll just keep them in the glove box in the car. So but what I did unbeknownst to me was they told him, that when they fitted me for the year moles, they wanted when I was distracted, they wanted to slop back so that I couldn’t see him. And when they took the earmolds out, and we began to converse again, they wanted him to create a disruption.
To get my reaction, well, there was no reaction. So he was sitting behind me, and he was clapping his hands. And he was calling me names, and he was counting, and he was doing all kinds of things, but I didn’t hear any of it. And what they what we found out was that it wasn’t that bad. What I done was I’d had subconsciously learned how to read lips. So what, like what and you know, you just don’t realize, you know, like, he would say to me, I realized that, you know, when we were in the car, you don’t want to drive anymore. And I would sit sideways, I put my seatbelt on, but they’re always sets, I was always always looking. I changed the seating in house, I didn’t sit where I used to sit, I always used to sit on the couch next to him. Now suddenly, I’m sitting in chair at an angle to him. All these things were happening, but I had no idea that that was happening or anything else. So what ultimately happened was, I made so many mistakes in my practice that I had to shut down. I couldn’t hear I call it again, I couldn’t go into court and read people’s lips. Um, so and no plan, no retirement plan, no nothing.
As this was going on, a friend of mine, and I’ll spare you all of the details, except to say that to you, that I was going down and I was helping him every day because he was going through divorce, and I’m completely incapacitated. I was talking to his brother. And I’m saying, you know, Sam needs help. Sam needs help. He should be impatient. He was suffering from severe depression and everything. This was a guy that was 10 times smarter than me. He was the valedictorian of my law school class, and everything else. He ultimately took his own life and took life of both of his children and his wife. So that just kind of completely destroyed me, because I felt so responsible. I was talking to the sky every day, I was going down, I was taking them to a psychologist, because I couldn’t take him to a psychiatrist. Because if he was on medication and sticking psychiatry, he wouldn’t be able to have unsupervised rotation. And I’m saying to myself, so it’s the law telling us that it’s better to stay broken and to get fixed. Stay broke, and you can see your kids get the help that you need.
You’re not allowed to spend time alone with your kids. Is that is that what happens. And at the same time, I had a very well known litigator that wanted to present against my physician in the drug company that they suspect caused my my deafness. And he said, and I said to him, but mark, I met with him and I said, That’s not going to work. Because first of all, I don’t want to sue these people, these people saved my life. I had a very, you know, I’m still here. And granted, I’m going to the dermatologist every 45 days, and I’m having biopsies and I’m this and I’m taking shots, and I’m on chemotherapy and everything. But I’m still here. Yeah.
So. And if they said to me, maybe they said it. Maybe I didn’t hear because I couldn’t hear. But if they said to me, yeah, one of the side effects is that you could lose your hearing. I would had I not maybe a year. But that doesn’t mean that insane. I said, and if they didn’t, if they did, didn’t say it, they didn’t know because I believe that they were dealing with the best knowledge that they had at the time. And more importantly, if I heard them say it, I would have said you can’t hear from six feet under in a wooden box.
So I would I would have waived, I would have gone down this road anyway. And it was very hard to be here for 28 for almost 30 years and have him say to me, that doesn’t matter, Mike, we can work around this. We’ll settle the case. And I was like, there is no case nobody didn’t think wanted me. Everybody did the best that they could and I’m still here and I’m proof of that. And you want to do to vote. Yeah, absolutely. So I had that and I had the death of my friend Sam, saying it’s better to stay that broken where you’re suicidal, you cause for deaths rather than move forward. And that’s okay. Because he, and then I lost the second friend to suicide was like a real wake up call for me. So I tried retirement and that didn’t work out that worked out fine for the summer. I hear that a lot. Yeah. And then it got close. And this is a true story. I was watching daytime TV, because I was going out later. And later in time, I was watching I was watching Kelly Ripa in the morning. So at night, I’m reading books about the Supreme Court in the morning. I’m reading Kelly Ripa watching Kelly. And one day, I turned on the remote to see who our guest was the next day.
So I could plan my day. And I was like, What have you if you can’t add to your mind? You’re planning your day around around TV? This is your spy camera cancer for Are you not? And I had no plan. I had nothing. I mean, it was one day at a time. Nobody. We didn’t plan for retirement, Mike will work and we didn’t plan for retirement, no plays home watching daytime TV. So I started volunteering at the hospital. And there I was just an amazing, amazing journey. But more importantly, I got myself a job. And because of the thing that affected me the most, which was which was, um, you know, I’m suicide of two friends. Right? And that I got a job working for a young adult mental health awareness organism and I started to volunteer. And now I’m the office man. You know, it’s like your passion. Yeah, no, it turned out to be my passion that and obviously, I still go to the dermatologist every 45 days, I still have my biopsies I have, you know, an experiment. And, you know, I have medication that I have to take and everything, but from my diabetes. You know, that was the other thing that made it very difficult, you know, that you died using the chemotherapy or on a collision course? Yes. But you know, it was sort of interesting for me to suddenly realize I watched daytime TV that there was no for this either. It was just life was happening.
And, you know, in many ways, it’s still happening, because now I’m old, I’m working here. Mike is now 70. He has gotten me through every, every day, every single day. I one of the habits that I developed as I was going through all this was at night when I go to bed, I take off my slippers, and I purposely get down on my knees, I wish them all the way under the bed.
Because then I get down on my knees and I realize how much I have to be grateful for. And in the morning, when I get out of bed. First thing I’ve got to do is get down on my knees to get my slippers out from under the bed. And the first thing that I see is my sleeping on the other side of the bed. And I realized how much I have to be grateful for. That’s awesome. But I say to myself, would it have been better? If we had thought about these things? Two reasons, it would have made the journey that much easier, that much less chaotic, that must less frightening. Nobody’s going to plan to get cancer. Nobody’s going to plan to go death. But you can plan for a catastrophe.
So what if the what if what if I can’t work, it doesn’t matter if I can’t work because I have diabetes, and I’m losing my eyesight or I have cancer or I’m losing my hearing? Or I’m just old or you get arthritis? Or who knows or if you have a car accident, right? COVID Yeah, right, exactly. But we never plan that. And you know, But through it all. Michael stayed focused on the need to control the circumstances, to organize, to keep to organize it to figure out what we were doing and how to move us forward. So when I say there was no plan, Michael always had a focus on the end, Ron. So Mike might not have. So Michael had planned Michael knew what he had to do. Michael had to manage. Michael had a plan for our retirement, Michael had to give thought, Michael Murali on and encouraged both of us to get long term care insurance and disability insurance.
All of these other things. So he had the plan, but I lived, I’m 65 years old, I lived without a plan. I lived reactionary, the two things that I believed, because I had been told Young was that actions have consequences, good, bad, or indifferent. And you have to control those. And you have to figure out how you play the cards that you dealt. But I never gave any thought to how to play the cards when I got dealt a crappy hand.
Now is that kind of like the same same as you made your bed, you can lie in it now. It’s similar. It’s similar, you know, you played the card, you’re dealt, you know, so you make good choices, you make bad decision, I tell the dealer hecha, whatever it is you got, you got to play them, you’ve got to figure your way out. And you know, and the other thing was, you know, when when things go wrong, you go look in the mirror, things go, go look in the mirror.
So it wasn’t a matter of not having any sense of responsibility or anything. It was a matter of always reacting, always reacting, never being proactive when it hit the fan. And But Michael, on the other hand, was always focused on the end run. And that’s about a stroke. That’s what got us through, if he just saw and if he didn’t look forward if he didn’t take stock of the situation, and have a plan for moving through it. We I don’t know. I don’t know if we were to stay together. I don’t know what our retirement is, you know, for all I know, you could be eating cat food right now. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s expensive, too. Yeah, that’s better than a GP, especially.
FINAL NOTES FOR LISTENERS
But what what kind of final note would you have for our listeners, that’s brought you to this point in your life, you’ve helped so many people in mental health, in cancer and raising money in in being trying to find your passion. I think you have many passions. But yeah, what kind of message do you think you would have? You know, maybe just another LGBTQ partner? Like, what would you have? I mean, what you’ve gone through is different than what others especially in that era, because we didn’t look at it in the 70s, or 80s. But I think the thing is, is thing is, is to take stock of who you surround yourself with, whether it’s a same sex partner, or opposite sex partner, or whatever, you build your life together.
Understand that there it’s not, it’s not all candlelight dinners. And you need to you need to plan for those nights. That’s not a candlelight dinner. And getting old is not for the faint of heart. So we can all you know, it we were living, what do they call it? spontaneously? Yes, the badge of honor. And I did that I did that for I just reacted to everything that happened. And thank God, it has a happy ending. But it has a happy ending, because I’ve made good because of the person that I was fortunate enough to be making choices. So I think that we can all spontaneously for the day. But think that we all have to recognize that life is not a spectator sport, and that we do have to plan that we are going to have good days and bad days, and how do we get through the bad days? And how do we capitalize on the good days? How do we know? We don’t know what’s next? So how do we make sure that we give ourselves as much insurance and by insurance, I don’t necessarily mean health insurance or life insurance or anything else. But just insurance that that the people that we care about and the people that care about us get what they need from us in good times. And
oh, that’s so beautiful. If this wasn’t recorded, I would have recorded that. Oh, that’s so awesome. Thank you. Did you have any other final message that you’d like to get the listeners?
I mean, what the story? Yeah, I you know, I want to thank people for listening. You know, I mean, I hope that, you know, they certainly if anybody had a question they could get in touch with me through you or anything. You know, I just, I just hope that when you go through this by yourself or alone, it’s a waste in many ways, not a waste. Because we come out strong, he come out differently. But if I can avoid if I can help one person do it better than me. Because they plan and they thought about it and they’re a little bit more introspective. And they recognize that it could happen, then yes, it gives what I went through, meaning purpose.
And so I just hope that one person that nobody gets cancer and that nobody needs a plan. But they can all say at the end of the run, Mike told us to plan. And isn’t he adult because we didn’t need to plan? Yeah. Oh, the the situation is that’s not going to happen. Because we all need a plan. We all need to know what it is that we’re doing. And we all need to know how it is that we’re going to weather the good days and the bad, bad. Yes. That’s perfect. That’s perfect. Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you so very much for your, your passion and helping others. I know, I really, really appreciate that. My Kim, of course, your other Mike has a big point in all of this as well. Getting to you to where you’re at right now as well. So thanks, Tom, your other half? Maybe your better half? I’m not really sure. But absolutely my better half. Sometimes I do have better halves. Yeah. And yeah. And what he shows is that, you know, it takes patience, both with yourself and with so I guess the other thing that people should always remember is, is they go through these good times and bad times to have patience.
Patience. Yeah. And we all hate patients. I know I do. Yeah, it’s it’s tough. We we have to wonder why we need patience. But when you’re in it, you sure You sure do. So well. Thank you. It’s that time again, listeners, I can’t believe it’s already, you know, we could talk to Mike here for forever, I’m sure you’re full of knowledge, you are full of experiences. And I may just have you come back on again, at some point in time again, because, you know, it’s it’s really beautiful. Unfortunately, you’ve had to go through what you’ve had to go through. But at the same time, wow, your experiences can help so many people. So thank you, thank you for that. Thank you look back at your convenience. And you know, yeah, yeah, and update us and give us some more highlights. So thank you. Thank you everyone, for watching and listening to our show. And take a moment and make sure you click on the subscribe button, share this with others. And click on that bell. And I know one of our other guests makes me want to sing. to click on the bell, there’s a bell right before beside the subscribe button down here somewhere right down there, right there. So make sure you click on the subscribe like this, this show as well, it helps to make sure that we’re getting more of the shows out to other people. And click on that bell because that really means that you get notified when we come up with more great guests like Mike, and you don’t want to miss it. So if you don’t click on the bell, you might miss a show. So um, I want to thank everyone for coming. As you can see, Mike is perfect for expect the unexpected. No one is Superman, and why not look at what we can do today to be better protected for tomorrow. And I coach each and every one. Because there’s nobody that gets out of this life alive, so to speak. And I just want everyone to feel that, that they don’t have to live in stress. They don’t have to live and not knowing what to do next. Because you’ve already consider the what if especially with your friends and family, parents, brothers, sisters, that type of thing, because that’s a tough situation to be in after the fact after the storm has hit. So thank you everyone for listening and watching. And if you were thinking of someone today, that’s in your mind that you haven’t spoken to, please reach out to them. Tell them how much you love and care about them. Because you don’t know what tomorrow may bring. Thanks Mike!
MIKE DALY AT : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100014065901310 mikedaly0956@gmail.com
Disability Planning, Preparedness, Sickness
THE MYSTERY BEHIND LUPUS
The Mystery behind Lupus, is forever ongoing. It affects 1.5 million Americans, and 5 million worldwide.
“Lupus changes people. It sculpts into someone who understands more deeply, hurts more often, appreciates more quickly, cries more easily, hopes more desperately, loves more openly, and lives more passionately.” Unknown
I love having you come on our show today to talk about the true mystery about your journey with lupus. I’m very excited to hear it from point A to Z.
And so let’s get the party started. Let’s talk about how it all started for you.
Sure, yes, absolutely. So it was a number of years ago seems like a lifetime ago, almost. In my 20s I started flying airplanes and absolutely fell in love with aviation, every piece of it wanted to know all about it. And so from the age 25 to 30 was flying a ton going through my ranks and all the ratings and teaching people how to fly and got my commercial and won some scholarships to do some other things. And it was really a fun time. But I wasn’t taking care of my body wasn’t taking care of the Spirit. And at the age of 30, my body just broke it just broke and wouldn’t do what I was asking him to do any longer. We my first episode, if you will, we were in Hawaii, enjoying a wonderful, blissful time in Hawaii is our favorite place to go. How can you not Hello, right. I know. It was absolutely gorgeous. In the last day, we were going to leave in the morning. And on the way to breakfast I decided I was just going to steal a few more minutes in the sun. But I hadn’t put on any sunscreen or anything because I was all dressed ready to go. And the sun can bring on a flare up in terms of auto immune particularly lupus, but I didn’t know this because I just this was hadn’t even started yet. But when we boarded the first airplane and they shut the door and we’re rolling down the runway, we were just taking a short hop from Hawaii to Honolulu. All of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. I was just gasping for air and scary place to be when that’s happening. It didn’t say anything to my husband till we landed again. It was just a 15 minute hop to Honolulu. But I said before we get on another airplane, I’ve got to see a medic. And so we did I didn’t even know if there was one up there you came back. Okay. Had to see a medic at the at the Honolulu airport and he listened to my lungs and said, you’re breathing in and out. I don’t see a problem. So what I know right, breathing lady Get lost.
So like popping Benadryl as we hop on this next flight, that’s a five or five hour flight over the water. It’s just miserable, but with enough rest. I think it was something in the plane then that I really had no idea. I just I was completely taken aback. I mean, I had the reason I was popping Benadryl is because for those five years when I wasn’t treating myself, Well, I was allergic to a lot of things. And so I always carried it with me not knowing that this was kind of the start of the whole autoimmune illness. So it didn’t alarm me to the I mean, I was alarmed, but not enough to go to say an ER, yeah, that was down the road. I with enough rest. I sort of recovered from that episode. Didn’t think too much of it.
A couple weeks later, I’m sitting at work having a sandwich and all of a sudden I can’t breathe again. So then I was able to go Yeah, it was just strange. Just autoimmune is just so strange. So I did go to my primary care. And she’s kind of said the same thing. Like that’s the we’re autoimmune is so strange. There’s no, we don’t really know what’s happening. I said, I can’t go home, like I’ve already been through this cannot do this again. So she got me in with an allergist that afternoon. Surprisingly, the only one available and that doctor had no idea at the time. He had interned in a lupus clinic. So he was I know, right. I mean, this is it was just this divine walk the whole you know, the whole walk, but I didn’t know what I mean. I still went in not being able to breathe or having that sensation. He asked me about 100 questions, took a bunch of blood work and didn’t even tell me why what he suspected. But the fact that he was living Listening, the fact that he was engaged, gave me enough comfort to go home that evening. those tests were very special took three weeks to get back in the meantime, episode after episode ER after ER. And it seemed like every time I saw a new doctor, they would prescribe a med that I was unable to take. I was allergic to it again, popping the Benadryl. So it was just this up and down just horrible, like, experience. One that I’m glad I haven’t, you know, had to go through those kinds of things again, so it was inside of the aviation industry.
A lot of those folks were saying, Go find a naturopath. And back then it wasn’t the easiest thing to do now,
right now. Right? So you hear it all the time, and it’s accepted. Back then it was well go see them if you know, you don’t want anybody to know, you’re sick type thing. Yeah, so right or go see that witchy doctor. Yeah. And again, I just happened to find like an expert in his field. But seeing that doctor for the first time, um, I, I found healing, the start of true healing within 24 hours, he somehow knew that the breathing issues I was having had nothing to do with my lungs. But everything to do with my stomach, my gut, I wasn’t able to expand my diaphragm to get a full breath because my gut was in such distress.
But like, Who knew? I mean, I certainly didn’t know. Right? And so he started me fasting right away on a liquid drink full of nutrition. And he had said, No, just do this for a week. I’m sure that that was a bite sized enough piece for someone to be able to follow his instructions. Yeah, that wouldn’t be too bad to do, right. I mean, you could do anything for a few days. It was Monday, and I was to do this till Friday. But Friday came. And I started panicking. I didn’t want to start eating. So he had given me because I was so sick. He had given me his cell phone instead, if anything happens, just give me a call. So I did, I called him and I said, Do I really, really, really have to start eating? I mean, for the first time, I’m feeling actually a little bit better. And he said, Wow, you’re blessed. No, you don’t. And so I continued on that for 90 days. During that 90 day period, I was buying that drink mix, if you will, that I mixed with water at the warehouse, because I was going through so much of it. And so it was it was fine. He just couldn’t keep enough of them shells. But that’s where I met, but they didn’t taste as good as they do now.
You know, I think God just hit that for me. Honestly. I one day I went in and was talking to a new someone I hadn’t talked to there before. And she was asking me Well, how does this taste for you? I said, Oh, it’s amazing. It I just know it saved my life. You know, I was I had her race it right. And I craved it, it was it must have had so much of what my body needed, that I truly did crave it. And so we started up this conversation, which after I left, I thought Oh good. She told me about her son that she had nursed back to health had almost passed. And she did it through nutrition. So when I left, I thought me and I really need to, I need to talk to her again, I need to know what she knows. And they didn’t want to call back and they didn’t want to let me they said oh, we talked to our manager and she doesn’t talk to clients. And I’m like, Oh, I really need to talk to her. So she did I said just please take my name and number. And if she’s willing to talk with me, I would just very much appreciated and she did call me and she gave me the name of the doctor who would really walk this journey with me a three year journey to healing. And I that was all of all of those experiences were very divinely led because like who would? It was one circumstance after the other that just was put in my path for you know the right place, right time type thing?
Because I think that’s what happens when you start going the right direction. It says okay, we got your back now.
We got to girl, let’s let’s keep moving forward. That’s exactly right. It’s the the universe will step in and give you what you need when you’re on the right when you’re on the right track. And even if you’re not, you know, you may stumble here or there but eventually find, you know, find the way Yeah. Did Is it very similar to when you started in that process because you didn’t really know what you were feeling and how you were reacting. But is it very much like Lyme disease because Lyme disease is a very similar type of hidden Yeah. I don’t I don’t even know what to call it because yeah, another half better.
Yeah. Weird. No hard to diagnose? Absolutely. So it is. And in fact, when I’ve talked to some people and seeing what other people have gone through with wine, this disease, I they’re so closely related in terms of symptoms that you know, who’s your guest is as good as mine type thing? Absolutely. They’re very, very similar.
So how did was there a wake up call for you?
Was there a real? the lightbulb went on for you?
Once you got through to a certain point of feeling a little bit better?
Definitely. And, you know, it was what you just said it was a wake up call, I was going the wrong direction in my life and had an opportunity to redirect. Yes, obstacles to overcome, for sure. But the redirection was in the right place that my life was supposed to go. And it was, you know, honestly, I wasn’t sure if I would survive, because I couldn’t take the normal course that other people could. And so imagine, coming down with an autoimmune the first one of the first things that you do is you go to a rheumatologist, I never made it that far. I was seeing ER doctors a lot. But there were no solutions. And I just knew, somehow in that space, there was, this wasn’t where I was going to find my healing. And in the natural realm, then with dealing just with food and supplements, and things like that. There was a lot of grace during this time, because I was so sick, but nothing I was doing was normal, in terms of what other people would do. So friends family, didn’t understand what I was up to. I did crazy stuff to get well, I read every cancer book of someone who had gotten welded, I did everything they did, there wasn’t anything on lupus back then in getting well, right. Yeah. And chronic illness was that it was chronic.
Um, so I was following protocol that other people couldn’t really swallow in terms of or understand or approve of. And so it was very lonely journey to wellness, because it was long. I mean, it’s like waking up with the flu for 1000 days. But every once in a while there was that little glimmer, I’d have a few minutes where I felt better. And then a week later, maybe up to an hour where I felt like, Wow, I didn’t feel terrible this last hour. So little glimmers of hope that kept me on that path doing what I need to do to get well.
So it’s 20 years ago, gosh, we didn’t have what we have now. I mean, even with Crohn’s disease with all the products of gluten free, and we didn’t have all of that sort of type of thing. And to me, it’s all very similar because our body’s reacting to something from either you’re putting in it or that you are around. I truly believe that, you know, it’s the water we’re drinking, it’s the drinks we’re drinking, it’s the food we’re eating, it’s, it’s everything. And it’s hard to eliminate those things out of your life. You can’t it’s like diabetics, you know, to go shopping or to go to a restaurant like everybody else. You have to be watching what you’re eating. Yes. So how did you get from really feeling sick and having that life changing career change for you?
Yeah, so as you mentioned, the eating I really had to eliminate everything. So I went through that first 90 days of complete elimination and the the drink mix, if you will, it was based on a rice based syrup. So when I added in food, all I could do was steamed zucchini, things you could see through once they were steamed I could pretty much see watermelon. Yeah and no and no fruit it was only vegetables, fruit wood. So one of the things that I had was leaky gut syndrome. And yeah, and so I couldn’t eat anything that would that would have sugars or anything in it and because the switches feed on that and create more right so for three years I vegetables morning noon and night once I started eating vegetables and we we fondly call it even today the walk meal I would cook in the walk and I still do vegetables is is pretty much what I eat. And I can do some rice products some and now they have lots of rice products like rice bread and rice noodles and so but but back then For three years it was vegetables morning, noon and night.
Wow. That’s a hard one to swallow basically because I mean, you can be a vegetarian but without fruit It seems so difficult, doesn’t it? But the sugar is not good for for really anybody’s got. And that’s yeah I had it I we were really treating that leaky gut I had a parasite too called blastocyst is hominis.
And so we were starving out the bad yeast, this parasite all have to do with a gut. Yeah, it was just so I, I, I know this could have gone another way. I know it could have gone where I would it wouldn’t be here right now. For sure. Like I said, there were many nights, I wondered if I would wake up the next morning, but I was my stomach was so sensitive that the only thing I could do was that rice drink and vegetables. That was it. And there was there was a time during that just a really short time during that period where I ventured out and had salmon and some chicken. And that was the one and only audible voice of God experience I’ve ever had. And one night I clearly heard everything you need to eat is grown out of the ground. And I was down to I know and I was down to my lowest weight. I was 105 lost. I had lost so much weight down to I looked like I was 13. I mean, that’s what I that’s what I weighed when I was 13 years old.
So I looked like I had anorexia. I mean, I looked terrible, right? And so I may I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me God. And so I made a deal with them. I said, All right. Because I just started bringing these two things into into my diet. And I said, Okay, I’ll make a deal. If I lose one more pound, in this next week, then I I’m going to go back to eating those two things. And I gained two pounds that week. So that was my deal with God, he won. And that was it. You know, like that was a he really was my he gave me the next step. Every single step I took then I got the next one. But I had to be really faithful in that time to do what he said to do before I got the next step. And so it was blind faith walking by the smallest light possible that could light my path and I just followed it. I knew I was that close to not living really, you know, it’s just on my way out. So I had to I had to follow it. It was survival piercer absolutely did.
Did you feel a difference eating the chicken and the salmon? Like are you a totally vegan then now.
So now I I don’t eat any meat and or poultry or fish. I do eat eggs, and then in basically vegetables and some rice type products. But that’s that’s the extent of my my diet. It’s gotten smaller again. I did. So once I got Well, we were able to have children, which was a total blessing and had three boys. They’re all grown up now. But once I was on the other side, you know I had I healed i mean i truly did my blood tests were normal. I there was a time then that I by the time I was 3334 I was asymptomatic. My blood tests reversed. And all was well. And so we started having kiddos and as moms with kiddos you start eating off of their plate. Hold on. There you come. Okay, so after about 10 years, I was a really poor vegetarian, I was more like a carbohydrate. And you know, I eat carbs all the time I consent I’ve done.
So I went and flipped exact opposite and went to the Atkins and just ate meat and cheeses and stuff like that, which tasted awesome. The last couple of years, I’ve switched back over to the vegetarian diet, and I have felt like I’ve gotten 10 years younger. Oh, wow. So yeah, so I know for me now, for the rest of my life here. I’ll stay a vegetarian. It’s just the most healthy way for me to eat and feel. body feels good. Right? Absolutely. So feel great and love you. I love that, you know, we talked about I was just talking about having a conversation the other day with someone about depression and folks who suffer from depression have a baseline that even on their good days, their baseline is probably like one of our not so good days. And that’s the way my body is like my good days are really pretty good. But if I do something to thwart that it throws me down to Where I’m not, and I just don’t feel good. And I’m, I don’t want to not feel good anymore. You know, I’ve had enough days of that. Yeah. Where feeling good means something to me.
So I do what I? Absolutely, yeah.
I find with a brain injury that I had with a car accident that oils are good. So my body seems to function better with MCT oil and avocados and you know all of that stuff it, it feeds it. Yes. It’s truly funny when when you start listening to your body, to how you’re feeling when you’re eating certain things. Do you eat a lot of proteins of beans and peas them?
I don’t because those are like gas producing. And again, I’ve got to be careful I, I just don’t feel well. So and I know another gentleman. His name is Matt Embry. And he’s he’s from Canada, and he got a diagnosis when he was 19 have Ms. And his diet is much the same. Those of us who feel well who have been diagnosed with autoimmune can usually feel better if we’re specific dietary needs are, you know, requirements and that are followed. And he he does eat lean meat. His diet is lean meats, fruits and vegetables, no beings with guns or anything like that.
Because it is, you know, that just attacks the gut. Right. So corn and stuff like that’s difficult to, interestingly corn. Corn will bring on a flare in a minute. And I had read a study years ago about a woman who just had a severe corn allergy. And not lupus though, she was diagnosed with lupus. And when she took corn out of her diet, she was well, it was just a corn allergy. But those corn allergies can be extreme can mimic a lupus even to the point of testing positive for it crazy. So yeah, corn is not something that I go down that road at all with.
Yeah. So all the things that are similar are lawns disease, and lupus. What about Crohn’s disease? And there’s another one for the stomach. And that will IBS and, and I, yeah, fibromyalgia. So all of those kinds of things are all very similar to finding what it is that you can eat, that your body feels good for.
Yeah. And and, you know, it’s it’s too bad that that message isn’t delivered, necessarily, by Western medicine, don’t want to say that too loud. But like if if doctors would really acknowledge, acknowledge Yes, and just say, Hey, why don’t you try this? Because I’ve read plenty, even Heart Heart Doc’s who were wondering about, like you were mentioning earlier, diabetes is an autoimmune as well. And he’s a heart doctor started treating his heart patient or his diabetic patients who were also as heart patients with diet and found not only did their diabetes regulate, but their heart conditions did as well. Amazing what we can do with diet.
Did you try intermittent fasting?
I do that now. But I didn’t back that. I mean, every day was almost too fast for Yeah, 90 days of it back then. And then often, I would just, I would not even have the vegetables on a day I would you know, so. I intermittent fasting i think is is great for our bodies, and they and so much literature and information about that out now. Yeah.
Do you do it all the time, or just here and there then?
No, just in it’s almost, I wouldn’t call it a regime But often, I will eat my last meal at somewhere around two or three o’clock in the afternoon. So then it’s just sort of what it just sort of works in regularly for me that I’m not planning it out. Did you find any medicines or you know, whether they’re on the shelf or vitamins or anything that was helpful.
nutritional supplements are for me meds, I was just really allergic to everything out there. But there are nutritional supplements. You mentioned, oils, omega omega is are phenomenal for the brain. And so that’s something I take a lot of it’s great for brain fog, because with autoimmune generally comes brain fog.
But we would have to eat somewhere around 20 to 23 fish a week to get what our brain actually needs. And so we You just have to supplement with that. That’s something everybody should do. Antioxidants are super important. And probiotics and prebiotics are very, very important. I also take like eye vitamins, wanting to just keep those those things sharp and generally with autoimmune comes achy joints. So glucosamine is a really great, great thing to take as well. But there are difference in terms of absorbability and what supplements actually provide nutritional supplementation like help to the body because there’s a lot out there that doesn’t. So I found some great stuff.
Yeah, it sounds so much like fibromyalgia, you know, it’s like a combination of a whole bunch of things, right, like with the body and the soreness, and the headaches and the brain fog. And it’s unbelievable how all of those symptoms are wrapped up into one, your stomach not working right. You’re, you probably were you high and then lower, you know, you’d have a good day and then a bad day.
And well, mostly they were bad. You know, honestly afraid for a year and a half beginning for sir. Yeah, it was, yeah, for a long time. It’s just it’s just all bad. But, but I could see, you know, generally things I just had to believe what I was doing. It’s really amazing when I look back on it now because there were so many days that went by before I saw any improvement. Like why would you be doing this if you don’t but, but I did. And when you say Fibromyalgia that reminds me I, I had that diagnosis as well. There was a time when I was seeing that doctor for three years. He said, Well, you also have fibromyalgia. And good news is that usually lupus accompanied with fibromyalgia means you won’t have the damage to the major organs that lupus can do. You’ll just feel crummy for the rest of your life. And I’m like, thanks. I know. Right? So that was the bad news.
But I never I never talked about feeling not well for the rest of my life. Like again, there was that distinction that I made. I was always seeking. How do I get well read everything I could did every every research I material I could get my hands on I read every book about healing. I got every meditation I could have gotten about healing. I did like I was so bent on getting well that’s the only thing that came into my purview was how do I get well, so I think that was a huge piece of, of getting well is seeking it well, and not relying just solely especially 20 years ago. Like even 10 years ago, things have changed enormously with our foods have gluten free and our sugar free and our protein shakes and our you know, because those protein bars used to taste like cardboard. But now they’re not too bad. So they have come a long way. For sure. To to get something quick. That’s not like an Oreo cookie, or something. Right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So what about dairy? Have you stayed away from dairy as well?
I definitely try and stay away from dairy. And that’s something that really feeds autoimmune. When I watch Matt Embry, he says the same thing like his dad is a professor at a at a call University in Canada. And so are you was at the time when Matt got diagnosed. And of course, if your 19 year old son gets diagnosed with something like they should go to work to figure it out. And they I don’t have all of his research, but he does offer that and his research research has found that dairy will promote rapidly autoimmune. So that’s something that we need to stay away from. Yeah, all the good stuff, right?
Well, I just found out because I was wondering why I’m on the keto diet. So I eat butter. And butter was sitting on my counter. And it was not very yellow. And then I started thinking, why isn’t it melting? on the counter? Like what’s going on? Yeah. So then I started looking it up. And in February, I don’t know the United States but in Canada. They change the formula to what they can feed cows. So they’re giving cows palm oil is my understanding to increase the amount of milk that they can produce, so that they can make more dairy products that Yeah, but I thought why With all our wisdom and knowledge in the hierarchy, that we are supposed to avoid palm oil. It’s not good for the environment. It’s not good for the forests. It’s not good for our body. What are we doing? So many. So now I’m looking for real butter. Like and that’s hard to do. Is that not crazy?
Yeah, it totally agreed. I think there’s a there’s an Irish butter. That still is the real thing out there. But yeah, you it’s so important to continue. Yeah, we think we have it. And then we need to Yes. So I love your curiosity in terms of even looking that up, like what’s going on? And and finding that, that that’s the case. So that’s new to me. So I thank you for that. Because I’ll have to keep an eye out every night. I cook for my family too. So I’ll cook differently for me than I do for them. But I’ll because butter has a nice smell. But the other butter doesn’t. It’s like hard. It’s like a lard melt.
Wow. And so what does that gonna do to our bodies? it? I don’t know. But right. So that was scary. Yeah.
Then. So is the milk different? Is the cream different? You know, now you’re like asking about everything. Yes. It’s crazy. My mom was noticing that the milk has a skim of something around the glass. That is leaving like an oil. Yeah. So I don’t know if it’s in our milk now. But you know, they have to put it on the label every time. That’s right, because they’re not putting it into the end product. Yeah. They’re putting it into the feed that they’re giving the animals. Yeah. In some shape or form. I’m not really sure or understand why. Yeah. So if anybody out there knows. Write down a comment down below. I’d really appreciate it. listeners would to come on dairy farmers. Come on. Let’s look fine. Tell us why. Yeah, no, good. Good observation. Yeah, so what are they doing to their cheeses and everything else? Do you eat tofu? I don’t only because I’m allergic to soy. Oh, yeah. So that isn’t a protein that I can consume.
Gosh, that eliminates a lot of stuff.
Yeah, it’s easier just to think about what I can eat than what I don’t I’m in honestly, that’s just the way I have to look at it. And sometimes, I know over the years dieting and this and that I’ve always been that type of a person anyway, just tell me what I can do. I’ll make anything bad, if you will, when I was you know, doing the Atkins, I could make that a super. That’s when I did eat dairy I did for those for a few years there. And I have to say I didn’t feel bad on on that particular regime for a period of time. And then our body chemistry changes and then I had to change with it. So at the end, that’s a key thing. Our body is constantly changing. And to be in tune with what that is doing, you know, to listen, hey, why am I not feeling as well? Why am I more tired? When I get up in the morning? Why don’t I have as much energy during the day? These are questions we should be asking ourselves so that we can make the appropriate adjustments. What about goat products that were never tried and I’ve never tried them I go to great idea and I but at the same time, I’ve eliminated all of what would take its, you know what that would take his place of so it’s just better not to go down that road.
Because it might be an option for for some people. What about almonds, almond milk and almond butter and nuts.
So great guides to get I’m allergic to almonds so I can’t do the almond milk but I do rice milk. So if I you know and I can do some oat milk as well. So those are the the two things that are in my fridge right now. And then other stuff for my you know, for my family cereals, or any cereals that you can have like is there a granola or anything?
Great, another great question. So I am just thinking about what’s in my pantry right now and it’s rice checks if I have a cheat it would be that with some maple syrup and some rice milk. You know if I just want something sweet and feel normal? Yeah, yeah, it’s just it’s an easy, easy kind of small meal or whatever that I can eat if I get hungry
for lunch is there’s I think there’s rice roll ups now that you like a tortilla shells or there’s lots of corn ones but I think there’s rice now too. So you could use that with some vegetables and mayonnaise and mustard and kind of
So I don’t do the the condiments if you will. But what I would do is put the vegetables like, I’ll boil some vegetables and rice and put those in and have a have a vegetable rice wrap. Yeah, that’s it. That’s a tree.
That would be it sounds yummy. Yeah. So that could be a dinner too, I guess or Absolutely. Yep. So you have to make two meals one. One for you.
I do. I do. Indeed. So the kitchen. Yeah. Lots of fun.
So on to the next. So we talked about what we’re putting in our bodies. But we also have to know what medicines we talked about. What about in supplements? What about our environment, our water, our drinks, and our cleaning products?
Yeah, oh, just super on point questions, water, we do get purified water, we we we have a system to do that. And so it’s so important to drink good water know what kind of water you have had, if you don’t know, get it tested. In the US, it’s probably different than Canada. But in the particular neighborhood we live in the the water is so hard with calcium, they can’t even test how hard it is. So we Yeah, we have to do some alternate things there. And environmental. I didn’t know how much chemicals in this is more monitored and regulated in Canada than it is in the United States.
But there are a lot of chemicals and ingredients in just the things we brush our teeth with wash our hair, all those personal care things, cosmetics, laundry, cleaning all of those things here in the us that we just need to do better for so you can find some privately owned independent manufacturing companies that make them much cleaner. And I did that at 1.0. Fast forward probably 1518 years. And lupus is such a hormonal disorder that when I did all this research, when I was 30, I thought I’ll probably have some issues as I’m going through these hormonal shifts when I get older. And that’s exactly what happened. So I was able to live those 15-18 years or so just however I wanted stay out in the sun, what I wanted all of it. And then my body started slowing down again. And I started breathing heavy in this time. It wasn’t like I couldn’t breathe. It was just my heart rate was up all the time. And I went to the doctor and he sent me to the ER, once again on this road of what’s happening. And they diagnosed me with graves disease. Well, that’s an autoimmune issue where the the antibodies attack the thyroid, put your body in hyperspeed.
So my heart rate was 120, just at rest, which when I know right, I was on an eternal treadmill, I was tired, oh, my heart rate was going and so if I got up to unload the dishwasher was at 150. And if I was on the treadmill 180. So it can be dangerous. And they of course care about stroke and heart attacks and things like that. So I got home and I looked up what graves disease was. And I immediately called the endocrinologist and said, Hey, listen, you know all that blood you just took, could you please run a test for lupus? And she said, I can’t I won’t know how to read it. And I said, Well, I will. And of course my tests came back just as high as they had 1518 years prior. So devastated.
Absolutely. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this next bout of lupus because at the time, my husband had been furloughed from his position, I wasn’t working. And just to do what I did back that many years ago was 1000 bucks a month between supplements, the drink mix, I was offering food that you’re eating Exactly. And we didn’t have that we didn’t have it. And I went to bed one night and said, God, you’re gonna have to bring it to me. I had no resources, I had gone up to the clinic that I had healed with before. And it was going to be a $300 intake, they no longer took insurance all out of pocket. There wasn’t any money. And now we had three kids to support so it wasn’t like we could spend anything on my dealing.
It’s so frustrating because when you want to eat properly, it’s so much cheaper just to grab that McDonald’s hamburger and a bag of chips.
Yeah, it is the those go twos. Obviously that had to to stop like immediately. And I tried to replicate what I knew I had taken before omegas and antioxidants in these things, but to no avail. Because really the grocery store equivalent was not equivalent at all, but my niece had reached out and she shared with me a manufacturing company that I could start shopping that was clean, made great supplements. I did that and within the I mean the upside of the story was within three weeks I woke up one morning, no symptoms whatsoever. And within nine months, my blood tests reversed. So I know that chemicals that are in the things we use every day. I know that good nutrition. Yeah, if we can handle those things, those are key in terms of either regaining our health or remaining healthy.
And I know there’s a lot more products out there. Many more choices are Yeah. Then there used to be, I think, maybe 20 years ago, there was melaleuca. There was Watkins, there was. I’m not sure if Mary Kay fell into that for makeup or not. Then they may be now but not back then. Yeah, I’m just trying to remember some of the things but now there’s even at the grocery store here. There are organic products. I think Burt’s Bees have organic line. There’s makeup lines now. There’s laundry soaps that are organic, so to speak, I guess that’s how they’re labeling them. I’m not really sure what that means.
Yeah. And that’s, I think that’s key, the last time I looked, a lot of the things that we see out there have been gobbled up by the bigger companies. And people don’t know that. And so it is, what I can recommend is that people are extremely diligent in what brand they are using. Because there’s a lot of like you said, In the beginning, companies don’t have to put things on their labels here in the us back in the 1950s. There was legislation passed and for good reason back then it just doesn’t serve the people today. Yeah, for proprietary reasons. People in manufacturing companies don’t have to label put the ingredients that are in a product. So because it’s just again for proprietary so someone can’t another company couldn’t start up and use those same ingredients and make it then you’ve got competition, but now it just doesn’t support us in terms of the the shoppers, the consumers. So a lot of crazy stuff. I know there’s a lot of organic brands may naturally
But what is it it’s so difficult? It is whoever it is, I actually developed a class called what what toxins are lurking in your home. And I gave that at rec centers and libraries. Because I you know, people just need to be aware, I think that’s the first thing, awareness is key. And then the due diligence, like do your diligence, look and seek not just on a label, I there was one brand in particular that I had become aware of that the label looks on there’s, it’s an entire brand that you can find it the grocery store. And I went to I started just googling went to their website. And when you go to the website, that’s where you find where I found all the ingredients. And some of the really dangerous ingredients are in that brand. Just not on the label. But they do put it on a website. Yeah. So good.
That’s what I’m saying it’s a person has to do their due diligence, you have to look and if it’s something that is necessary for your next moment, do the research. Now, if it’s something that can wait on, you know, just do your research as it comes when you’re aware yet we don’t know what we don’t know. And when I got Well, in three weeks, after that last bout, eight, nine years ago, I went to work and I researched like crazy because I thought what on earth could be the things. You know, in these things. I’m using toothpaste and shampoo that could make me not just sick with one illness, but graves and lupus, like this is crazy. And I just would France. That’s all I did. I didn’t change any of my eating. During that time, a couple years ago, I changed but during that time, nothing and my blood tests went back to normal. I mean, that’s. So I did the research because I really had to, and I recommend that you know, for people who are struggling if you’re struggling with autoimmune or and there’s so much that falls into that category now eczema. Oh, definitely do the research.
Yeah, absolutely. I find I have a lot of I’ve had quite a few clients with lupus. And they would be good for a long time. And then, like you said you’d have about where it would reoccur. But do you know how long that time is going to last? And you don’t have to make that other shift again, like how do you change that? When it rains back?
Yeah, great question. So So for me, it was just another layer. It was what I was using in my home. For someone else. It might be some of the foods that they’re eating, but it just it just helps us layer by layer get better and better. The three things that I know are super important is what we’re putting in our bodies, what we’re putting on our bodies and the things that We’re breathing in and using to, you know, clean our homes and things like that we have control over those things. We don’t have control over what’s being sprayed outside or whatever. But the things that are inside our home, and that we put inside our bodies, we do have control over that.
Yeah. What types of things do you use for the family? Do you go the same way? Like you don’t eat differently, but is that it’s what I’m trying to say is that it’s hard. Not so much to have different foods for your family and you. But you want them to be healthy, too. So you want the mental stuff to stay healthy. You want the stuff they’re putting in their hair. Yep. And all of that kind of stuff. So you don’t do two types of things. We all shop the same store. Yep.
And everybody’s, well, you know, I have one of my kids, he has struggled with eczema and psoriasis, asthma, those kinds of things. And as long as he sticks with this brand, he’s fine. So even laundry detergent. I mean, that’s a big deal. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard of that from allergies, and eczema and things like that, too. Yeah. We say excema.
And you say eczema? Either way. Yep. eczema, I can call it that, dude. It’s funny how we say things a little bit differently. What types of things? Do you speak on them when you do your speaking engagements? Sure. Well, I
love to speak on overcoming the obstacles in our lives, and using those obstacles to redirect us to the true path that we’re supposed to be on. That’s what happened to me and I listened those those folks out there who have overcome the obstacles can speak to very much the same thing. You know, we find our true selves, our other self, as some authors write about when we get to be challenged with adversity. And it’s what we do with that, that makes a difference in terms of not just surviving, but thriving, giving back to others, and sharing what we know, so that we can bless someone else along the way.
And it’s, it’s quite funny how you said that we have to learn how to eat, we have to learn what our environment is, we have to learn what we’re putting on our body. And it’s very similar, I found working with clients for risk, as well. Because with your backup plan, it’s nice and easy to use, but people don’t understand why they have to do certain things in the app. So when I created the emerging blueprint, that’s the part of the research that I like that, that you say that you help with, because that’s what I help with. So with people understanding, why do they have to have a will? Why do they need a power of attorney?
People think well, and they know they need it, but they don’t understand why? What is their life insurance policy look like? Under being able to understand it. So you can talk the same language, when you go in to see that financial expert, when you see that investment advisor, understanding what you have before you reach that point of discussion. And it’s very similar to what you’re saying, is understanding what’s in your products, understanding what it could do or influence to your body. You know, if we don’t understand it, we’re not going to do it. That’s what I found if you don’t understand what’s in the butter, and you just continue using it that way. But if you’re starting to read research and understand why you have to do certain things, it makes things so much easier.
Yes, so understanding does put us into action, where maybe we wouldn’t have before.
Yeah, yeah. And now I’m worried Well, what are they doing to the aches? What are they going to chicken?
I know it’s a list goes on? It does and I know a lot of people who raise their own chickens now get their own eggs and then those who don’t but are in the know by their eggs from them. So you know, we’re We are an evolving people and we will find alternatives. And I think that’s that’s what, like what you’re doing is so important, Tina, because you’re giving people simple, easy steps to take care of these things that we’re generally not good at taking care of And if we can look at our health in the same way you can take care of all those things. But if you don’t have your health, all those things don’t matter. The only thing that matters when you’re sick is how do I get well? And if we can take care, just be mindful, being mindful. What are we shopping for? What are we eating and finding those nuggets along the way? That, oh, I found this thing, you know, that. Just so glad I found this brand, or this, just this little snippet of information. And so it’s not, we can never do a big overhaul in our lives all at once. But we can take on something new every week. Like if it’s just one thing a week. Yeah, I’m going to tackle this this week. And it makes us feel so good about what we’re doing. Yeah, yeah, it feels this, you know, we just we know we’re on the right track. And, yeah, do you have any recipe books?
I don’t, because my so in my book called life after lupus. I do share what I eat and how I fix those things. But it only takes up a few pages because my diet is so limited, so it wouldn’t be worth it. But I can say, for your listeners, Matt Embry has a website called Ms. hope.com. And he provides a cookbook a free cookbook for anybody you can go there and download it and or you can have it sent to you for free. He literally does everything. So very generous with his time, I would recommend following him. You know if anybody does have MS and or any autoimmune disorder, follow the people that have gotten Well, he’s one I’m one. So Matt Embry, again, he’s a Canadian, and then myself on the life after lupus, two different autoimmune but very similar wellness stories.
Absolutely. Where’s he located in Canada? Do you know, Toronto or Ontario say Alberta, but I’m not sure. Okay. Okay. Yeah, just in case anybody in that area listening that? That would know? Yeah, that’s awesome. I would love to, you know, I be the perfect person, even though I don’t have that type of disease. But I would love to watch you on Instagram and Tiktok to what you’re making every day. So there you go. There’s a love for you.
Okay, all right. So many people that want to eat better. Right? And where do you start? Like, what do you do I, I 100%. Understand, you know, whether I want to lose weight, or whether you want to eat properly, or better, or mix it into your diet two or three times a week, or whatever that looks like, right? Yeah, yeah. Good. Good thoughts. I appreciate that. I see one of your watchers.
Okay, I’ll maybe have to look at doing that. Come to my kitchen. Absolutely. I want to see the tick tock dances as well. I haven’t ventured onto that platform yet. But I mean, people keep telling me really, but yeah, so anyway,
there you go. I’m one of many telling you now. So your books you only mentioned one. So what are your books all about?
So I do write daily devotions and prayers. And I have a book that is a 90 day devotional. I have a prayer book. I have written a bunch of poems to my kiddos. So for Christmas, I put all their poems that I’ve written them so they don’t have to find them in scraps, your backup plan, that’s a perfect fit. I wanted to you know, so they weren’t having to look and find all these things when I’m gone. I put prayers and poems in a book for them. And that’s part of the treasure box. Yes, yeah, yeah. And I told the kids we’re not going to do a four by you Christmas this year. And I didn’t want them to buy it was like all homemade gifts. So I decided to upload that on Amazon. And then my latest book is one on I’ve written about 100 songs and with each one of the lyrics with those songs goes a story. So I did publish that book as well called Gods whispers and melodies, and upcoming books a couple of journals that can help people really get a great start for their day and eventually writing on mindset in a biblical ways so that I think the maybe some believers some Christians who haven’t been able to accept some of the positive mental attitude things out there can can really see this is what Jesus said. It’s just in a different way. So that’s upcoming, those are some upcoming cool,
do you sing and play music as well? or? Yeah, and that’s, I have some of that on my YouTube channel. Oh, cool. Yeah. Did you want to do a little song for him? Not at all.
That has to be thought of and prepared and not a problem. It’s it sounds lovely. Anyways, it was a beautiful, I tell you inside of a few years and it was I was sitting at the piano one day and I just pray God was ever blessed praise and worship. And literally, his download of a song came that it could be a cantata, like could be done with an orchestra and, and it was so overwhelming out, oh my gosh. And that happened in three days. And then song after song just I just kept hearing the music and I go, and I find it at the piano. And the lyrics would come. And sometimes the lyrics would come before I’d get the notes, but it’s like God wrote this gorgeous music. And it was a very transformative time in my life. Like that’s how we he grabbed a hold of my heart and softened it and made it usable by him. So it was when I get too busy I quit hearing the music and that’s why I’m saying like, though that now we get through it right now but but when I get quiet and and really avoid the chaos, I start hearing the music again.
Well, it’s kind of like when you’re going inside yourself. And it’s a meditation type of thing that you can download this type of energy, right? What do you play the piano then? guitar or just the piano? Oh, that must be beautiful. Now you’ve got me interested in hearing these? So it’s on your YouTube channel?
Yes. Well, I have two YouTube channels. One is life after lupus and the others just my name where I you can find me under Andrea Lende.
I’m okay. Okay, perfect. So listeners, I’ve put down below all the types of all of Andrea’s descriptions below. I believe I have Anyways, I hope I have. I’ll double check it, but I’ll make sure it’s all there for everybody. Did you have any final messages that you’d like to give to people struggling with these types of auto immune diseases,
I just really want to impress upon any anyone suffering from autoimmune that there is a possibility of healing, that our bodies are meant to heal. And if we just open that up a little bit, we’ll be on a different path. And so that’s really my message for them. And for those who aren’t sick, see what we can do to just feel better. There’s so many people who are walking around and not feeling well every day. And there’s some very simple changes we can make to reverse that.
Yes, and a lot of times it ends up it starts in your stomach. It I’ve read that over and over that every disease starts in the gut. So what are we putting in? My mom, I remember being a young kid, and my mom would say, which one? Is the boss of your body? Is it your brain? Or your stomach? Yeah, I think it’s your stomach.
And now even a lot of psychiatrists are finding there’s there’s more neuro receptors in the gut than there are in the brain. So they’ll treat even schizophrenia now with probiotics. And within a year episodes are far diminished. There’s There’s magic in the gut. We just have to find it. Treat it well, because it does regulate everything else.
Absolutely. Suzanne Somers has really amazed me because she’s gone through cancer. Previously, she’s changed her diet. She has quite a few books out for eating, which are very, very helpful for anybody wanting to lose weight or eating healthier, as well. I don’t know if you’re aware, Andrea, but she’s come out with a gut protein mixture for your gut. And she and she has a pure organic skincare line as well.
So go Suzanne Somers. I’m right with you, right. Yep. Agreed. So anybody listening, check her her website out as well. If you’re wanting to look further into better products that you can’t find at the drugstore or grocery stores around you. That’s I guess, where the natural food stores have become so very popular lately, in the last, I’ve seen a real change in the last 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. For people. So thank you, Andrea, for coming on. I can’t believe all your words of wisdom. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Tina. It was a real delight to have you come on and really give some people some inspiration to have a better day to look at what you’re eating. Look at what the environment is giving you. And if you’re not sure about your butter, put it on your counter and see what happens. Right. Oh, craziness. I just can’t believe the world we live in now. It’s But even before, like, Who would ever think that our dairy products would change? Right? Crazy.
Till next time, lots of love. Bye
I want to personally thank Andrea for coming on our Podcast with all of her wisdom around figuring out Lupus. There are many suffering right now with it and hopefully Andrea has made it a bit easier with some tips for you. Enjoy!
Here are Andrea’s Links:
website: https://www.believinghim.com
Author Page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Andrea-Lende/e/B08MB5XCSC
Life After Lupus Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lifeafterlupus/
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWdaqtF3fxfsuZ4gnNXQ9IQ
Downloads from God Podcast: https://anchor.fm/andrea-lende
Author/Speaker303-960-7584
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